


The Boy In The Mirror

by OmissionSoul



Category: South Park
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-11-03 00:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10955709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmissionSoul/pseuds/OmissionSoul
Summary: Craig's family moves from the city into a new home out in the small town of South Park. Everything is peaceful and quiet as he begins slowly adjusting to his new life. One day however, he looks at his closet mirror to see a boy staring back at him.





	1. Chapter 1

I finish setting down the last of my unpacked boxes in to my new room before letting out a tired sigh.

"There," I say aloud to myself.

I look around my new room, it's still pretty empty said for the boxes in it. The walls are white and the floor is hardwood, I've still yet to get my bed in the room and there are two big windows with no curtains on them, also a big closet mirror that takes up almost two thirds of the wall it's on. My gaze lands on it, I look at it briefly until I hear my mother call me, breaking my attention from it.

"Craig? Are you finished moving your stuff into your room?" she calls up the stairs.

"Yeah!" I shout back.

"Can you come and help with the other stuff then?" she asks.

I let out another sigh, "Coming," I reply, and glance once more at the closet mirror before heading out of my room and downstairs. When I get down the stairs I see my mother carrying two boxes into the kitchen, she spots me after setting them down on the kitchen's countertop.

"Can you go and help your father move the couch into the living room?" she asks, opening up one of the boxes.

I frown, "Why didn't we get movers to help again?"

"Because, you know your father is very particular about how to do things, and he didn't want strangers touching our belongings. Now go and help him," she replies waving me off.

I roll my eyes and let out an exaggerated sigh, "Right," I say turning away and heading towards the front door.

"Thank you dear," she singsongs.

I exit through the front door and I am met with chilled air, I look over to the big white rental moving truck, parked in front of the house to find my father moving some smaller boxes out of it. I walk over to him, he notices me.

"Ah, Craig, there you are!" he says, and goes to stand behind the side of the blue couch. "Here, help me with this would you?" he motions for me to stand in front of the other side of the couch, so I walk up the truck's ramp and do."Alright, now on the count of three lift it up," I hunch over grabbing the bottom of the couch, "okay, one. Two. Three!" he grunts out lifting the couch and I do the same.

We lift it up and I slowly back my way down the ramp and out of the truck, then we make our way to the front door and slowly up the front steps into the living room, where we set it down. I sit on the couch's arm to relax a bit, but as soon as I do my father speaks up.

"Alright, now come and help me with the china cabinet," he tells me.

I groan and slowly get back up to my feet to finish helping move the rest of the stuff into our new home.

...

Later, as evening falls and the sky is just slowly starting to turn pink and yellow, we finally finish moving everything into our new home, I collapse onto the couch.

"Craig?" my mother's voice calls out.

"Yeah?" I respond tiredly.

"Your father and I need to go out and return the rental truck, and then get some groceries for dinner and the week, we'll be back a little later. Can you watch over your sister while we're gone?" she asks.

"Sure," I lazily answer.

"And don't open the door for anyone while we're gone," She adds.

"Yeah, yeah," I say and I hear the front door close.

I lie there, taking in deep breaths and looking around the now box filled living room, and think of how much fun it will be unpacking it all. I let out a sigh for the umpteenth time today and sit up. Now that I think about it, I hadn't really seen much of my usually annoying sibling all day today. Aside from the long car ride here and moving some of her things into her new room, I haven't seen much of her today.

I head up stairs and open the door to her room. I see her lying face up on her bed with her long strawberry blond hair spread out around her, and holding her 3DS above her and playing on it. I can faintly hear music coming from it.

"Yes?" she asks, not looking away from her game.

"Did you just stay in your room all day doing nothing?" I ask a bit annoyed.

"What? No. I leveled up from 6 to 20 on this game, so that's something," I look at her unamused, " Besides, I told mom that I wasn't feeling very well and that I think I may be sick or something and she told dad," she says still never taking her eyes off the screen of the 3DS.

"You look just fine to me," I respond crossing my arms and leaning on the door frame to her room.

She puts a hand to her mouth and fakes a cough, "There, you see? I'm sick."

"So I see," I reply apathetically, "Anyways, mom and dad went out to return the rental truck and get some groceries, they'll be back later," I stand up straight again getting off the door frame, "and mom told me to watch over you while they were gone," I turn to walk away.

"You're doing a great job at that so far," She replies sarcastically.

I head off to my own room, and flick the overhead light on and look around it. My room now has my bed in it, but no sheets on it yet, all the boxes are pushed over to one side of the room by my dresser, that has a small lamp on it, with some smaller boxes also on it. The windows still have no curtains on them yet, so anyone could see right in. I head over to the pile of boxes and search through them until I find one marked as 'bed sheets'. I pull it out and tear the tape keeping it sealed, off, and take out the sheets.

After setting up my bed, I turn the small lamp on and flick the overhead one off and head back over to my bed where I lie down on my back. I debate to myself if whether or not I feel like unpacking more but end up opting to just lie there in bed looking up at the ceiling instead. My walls are now covered in shadows from the boxes laid out around the lamp.

I lazily turn to my side and come face to face with my reflection in the closet mirror. I look at myself than at other things in my room reflecting off the mirror. I continue to stare at it until I start to feel a bit unnerved by doing so for some reason, like as if I keep looking at it long enough, I might actually see something in it. I push the dumb thought away and turn over to my other side and close my eyes.

And think to myself I have to start all over at a new school tomorrow in this middle of nowhere town. I slowly start to feel myself drift off, until eventually I fall asleep.

...

It's quiet in the new room and nothing can be heard, said for the boy's deep breathing from sleep, and a quiet click of the lamp on the dresser being turned off in his room from seemingly nothing. The room is than flooded with moonlight shinning in through the non-curtained windows and reflecting off the big closet mirror.


	2. Chapter 2

I'm standing at the front of a classroom with a heavy backpack and a bunch of eyes on me. The feeling of having so many eyes on me, makes me somewhat uncomfortable and I feel myself shift from leaning on my right foot to leaning on the left one.

"Alright class, now as you might have guessed, we have a new student joining us starting today," the teacher, Ms. Miller , whose name I found out just a short while ago is called says, "would you like to introduce yourself?" she turns to me, and I want to say no, but I know it's something that needs to get done one way or another, so I just try and get it over with fast.

I look out towards the classroom of eyes. "My name is Craig," I say plainly.

There's a brief silence before the teacher asks, " Is there anything about yourself that you would like to share?"

Again, I want to say no but opt instead to say something generic, "Well, I use to live in the city and now I live here."

"Ok then," the teacher says, "why don't you go and take a seat next to Leopold near the back?" she points towards the seats direction. I walk over to it and set my bag down next to the desk as I sit down. "now then, we're going to pick up from page 48 in the text book," the teacher looks over to where I'm sitting, "oh, Leopold can you share with Craig for today? The other text books I ordered are still not in yet."

"Sure thing Ms. Miller !" the kid beside me, whose name is Leopold I guess, responds. He scoots his desk next to mine, "H-howdy," he says to me.

"Hi..." I reply.

"It's nice to meet you, my name is Butters."

I arch an eyebrow, "Butters?"

"Yeah!" he smiles.

"I thought it was Leopold?" I ask confused.

"Oh it is, but everyone usually calls me Butters, Ms. Miller is just one of the few around here that calls me that, she likes to be very professional about her work."

"Right..." I murmur.

"But yeah! The name is Butters Stotch, and it's nice to meet you!" he says enthusiastically.

"Your last name is Stotch?" I ask.

"Yeah," he grins.

"And everyone calls you Butters?" I repeat.

"Yup, why do you ask?" he asks.

I look at him for a moment, then wave off the awful pun coming into my mind, "It's nothing, nevermind."

He looks at me curiously for a second then opens his text book to the designated page and points to a line in it. "This is what we're working on right now," he tells me, and I begin skimming the page's content.

...

The class passes by and Butters offers to show me around the school during lunch time. Not really knowing anyone else at this school or having anything else in mind to do then, I agree to it.

Lunch time rolls around and he shows me where everything is. The library, gym, office, computer lab etc. Eventually we get to the cafeteria to eat. We get our lunches and look for a place to sit.

"O-oh! Here this way!" Butters says taking off in a direction into the busy cafeteria, I follow him and see him stop at a table talking to someone. I get to where he is just as he's setting down his lunch tray.

"Ah, here he is!" He exclaims, and the group at the table all look at me. I stare back awkwardly for a moment before Butters speaks up again, "Aren't you gonna sit down?" I move to a seat and slowly set my tray down and sit. "These fellas here are my friends.," he tells me as I take my heavy backpack off; that I have yet to put in a locker that is not yet assigned to me. I look around the table again and a few are still looking at me.

"Is he some sort of mute? Or does he just like to stare at people like that?" a chubby boy asks.

"He talks, but I think he's a bit shy to because he doesn't know any of you. Here, let me introduce you to everyone," Butters says. He points to the chubby kid sitting across from me, "This here's Eric, but everyone just calls him Cartman," he points to beside him, "that's Stan and next to him is Kyle, and beside me we have Clyde and Token also sitting with us today," he tells me, "and for everyone else, this is Craig."

"Oh yeah, you're that new kid," the one named Clyde says, "I remember you from first period, we share English together," I try and think back to see if I remember seeing him or not, but I didn't really pay much attention to anyone's face so I just kind of nod my head slowly as if to agree with him, "So where did you come from?" Clyde asks.

"Denver," I reply.

"Oh really?! Must be quite the change from the busy city huh?" Butters says chuckling a bit.

"So what made you want to move here?" the one named Stan asks.

"My father," I say flatly.

"Oh..." he trails off.

"By the way what part of town do you live in?" Butters asks.

I shrug, "I don't know, a part that has houses in it I guess."

"HA! He's got jokes guys, jokes!" Cartman says and I ignore it.

"I'm just wondering because I don't remember seeing any construction for any new homes around here," Butters explains.

"That's true huh, and the only place that's ever really vacant around here is..." Kyle trails off.

They all seem to pause for a moment before simultaneously all looking at me at once.

"Wait did you move into a big beige house, with a wooden fence around it and a dark green door near the end of a street?!" Clyde asks.

I pause for a moment confused then respond, "Yeah..." and all of their faces change to wide eyed expressions.

"Dude, that place is haunted!" Stan says.

I look at him confused, "Huh?"

"Yeah man, that place is so totally haunted," Cartman agrees.

"I've heard that quite a few people have moved out of that place in the last two years, all saying that it's haunted or something," Kyle informs.

"Yeah, and they were having a hard time selling it because of the reputation it was building around here," Token adds.

"Guess the only other way they could sell it was if it was to someone from out of town," Stan says.

"Yup," Butters nods in agreement.

"You poor, poor soul. So young to be going through such terror," Cartman says.

"Yeah, well it was nice to have met you I guess," Clyde adds.

I roll my eyes, "Well, I've been there a day already and haven't seen or heard any ghosts so far so I think I'll be fine."

"Yet," Cartman adds, I look at him, "you haven't seen any yet," he emphasizes.

I feel myself grow annoyed on this subject and pick up my bag slinging it over my shoulder and then standing up with my tray. "If you'll excuse me. I think I'll go and take another look around the school," I say before turning and heading off back into the busy cafeteria.

"Huh, what's with him?" Cartman asks.

"M-maybe he didn't like us talking about how haunted his new home is?" Butters suggests.

The rest of the day passes by quietly, until I find myself back home again. I set my backpack down by the doorway in my room. I look around my still unpacked room and let out a sigh, I walk over to a box and open it.

...

A week passes by before we're fully unpacked in the new house. And I find things to be rather dull here than compared to the city life. And mostly find my time being taken up by either homework, playing games, watching T.V or falling asleep. I don't really talk much to other kids in my classes at school unless needed to. Said for Butter's occasional rambles and greetings to me in class. I prefer just doing my own thing most of the time anyways.

As I get back home after another dull day at school, I flop down backwards onto my bed. "I know I like a bit of peace and quiet but this might be too much," I say aloud to myself. I tilt my head back to face the closet mirror, I look at my room's reflection in it, "been here a whole week and still haven't seen any ghosts," I chuckle to myself and close my eyes.

I feel a bit tired and think of taking a short rest, I lazily open my eyes to get ready to move again but completely stop when I spot something in the mirror's reflection. Something orange is standing behind my bed in the mirror. I feel my heart stop for a moment before I blink and the orange blur thing is gone. I sit up right away looking to the spot I saw the orange thing standing at but nothing is there. I look back at the mirror, till I just decide it was probably just my eyes playing tricks on me from being tired.

I lie down on my side and pull the comforter over me, to lazy to change out of my clothes. I'm about to close my eyes fully when again something orange catches my attention in the mirror. This time in front of my bed. When I see it, I sit up instantly never taking my gaze off of it, and when I do sit up all the way, I can see this orange thing is actually a figure, a person, wearing what looks like an orange hoodie. They are looking away from me, but as I continue to look at them, I see their head begin to slowly turn towards me, more and more until, I'm met with blue, a pair of blue eyes staring at me. It takes me a moment to realize it's a face I'm now seeing.

The face of a boy.


	3. Chapter 3

I stare at the boy in the mirror; heart racing, eyes widen and a growing feeling of apprehension in me. I hear a loud sound break my focus suddenly.

A knock.

I look to my door as it opens and see my mother emerge from behind it.

"Oh you're up, didn't you hear me calling you?" she asks and I shake my head, "Well dinner's almost ready, are you going to come down and join us?"

I look back to the mirror. Nothing.

"Craig?" My mother calls when I don't respond right away.

"Uh- y-yeah, I'll be right down," I tell her, coming back to my senses and looking over at her again.

"Alright then, it should be done in about five minutes or so," she tells me and pauses, examining me, "is everything ok?"

I nod my head, "Yeah," and glance back over at the mirror, "everything is fine..."

**…**

After I finish eating, I watch some tv in the living room and end up sleeping on the couch instead of in my bed that night. When morning arrives, I awake to being shook and see my mother.

"Craig. Get up. You're going to be late for school."

I groggily get up, my eyes feeling like there's sandpaper rubbing up against them from the little sleep I managed to get last night. I walk up stairs, and as I approach my bedroom's door I stop. Sudden images from yesterday flash through my mind. My palms begin to sweat a bit, as my heart rate increases.

I reach for the doorknob and slowly turn it. My door creaks as I open it cautiously. When it's fully opened, I immediately look at the closet mirror. But don't see anything in it but the stuff in my room being reflected off of it. I relax a bit walking into my room to get ready for school.

When I arrive at school, my thoughts are swarmed with a million questions about what happened yesterday and what I saw. They get interrupted however, by a chipper, 'Hello', I look over to see butters smiling at me with his usual morning self.

"Hi..." I murmur in response, still somewhat lost in thought.

"You feeling ok there? You seem kind of a bit off today," Butters says.

"I'm fine," I tell him and pause for a moment as a thought arises, "hey, um... do you know why exactly people say that the house I live in is haunted?"

His eyes widen a bit, "Oh golly- did you see something?"

"No, I'm just curious is all," I lie.

"O-oh well, the story tends to change a bit depending on who you ask," he tells me.

"Change?" I repeat.

"Yeah, some say the house was built on an ancient burial ground and that the spirits are upset about that. Another one is that, it's possessed by demons or evil spirits from satanists that lived there before."

"Satanists?" I repeat back flatly quirking an eyebrow.

"Mhmm," he nods, "although that's also a rumor. But me personally, I think that it's haunted by the ghost of a victim that was murdered there."

"Were there any reports of a murder taking place there?" I ask.

"Err, well no, most of these things are just rumors. But they certainly make things more interesting around here, don't you think?" he asks.

I stare blankly at him, "No," I reply to which he nervously smiles back at me, "so what you're saying is that, I live in a house of rumors that people created because they had nothing better to do with their time?"

"Um-uh- pr-pretty much," he says quietly and twiddles his thumbs a bit.

I let out a long sigh, "Great."

"But I really don't think all of them are fake or just rumors, I mean it is mighty strange that so many people moved in and out of there in such a short amount of time. So something has to have happened in that time. The problem is that, nobody really knows just what that may be," he tells me.

"How long has this been going on for now? The rumors," I ask.

"Hmm... about two years now, I'd say."

"Two? What happened to spark them?"

"That's the thing... nobody really knows what happened, there was some kind of commotion there some months before people started moving in and out of there frequently, but nothing- there was nothing, no reports or anything on it. It just happened and then that was it," he explains.

"So nothing happened then?" I ask.

He nods a bit, "Well there was an other rumor that a small fire broke out in one of the rooms, also around that time, but again..." he trails off.

"Only a rumor," I finish saying for him.

"If you two don't want to stay after school today for an hour detention, I suggest you start paying attention to the lesson," Ms. Miller says to us.

We both fall silent. I wanted to ask something else but decide that I've asked enough questions for now on the matter and just go about the rest of the day.

When I get home later, I once again stop in my doorway and stare at the mirror. Still expecting to see something in it, but nothing happens. Nothing appears in it. I walk up to the mirror looking for anything that may be on it but don't see anything. I start to wonder if what I saw last night even really happened at all, or if it was all in my head. But still, that nagging question was at the back of my mind.

Who was that boy?

I had hoped asking about what had happened before I moved in would've helped answer some questions that had risen in my mind, but it didn't. In fact, all it did was raise even more questions about this house. More confusing questions than answers, because nobody could get any damn facts straight. And although I feel like there's a possibility that some of the rumors might be true, I don't know which ones they would be.

There is always some truth to a rumor they say after all.

I set my bag down and decide to go and change, not wanting to think about this anymore for the day. And for the next week and a half, I don't, or try not, to think about it too much. But every so often my thoughts wonder back to it and I sometimes think I catch glimpses of orange out of the corner of my eye. I also find that a few things in my room, I swear have been moved around.

It starts to make me warily, and I put up a sheet to cover the whole mirror. But my mom takes it down a day later and tells me to, 'stop being silly'. And now I find myself here, lying in bed with bags under my eyes, because of a late night tv horror movie marathon special, on this Saturday morning. Which I did well with, up until a horror movie about a ghost appearing in mirrors hit a little to close to home for me.

I yawn stretching my limbs and decide I might as well get up. Maybe going and getting something to eat will take my mind off of it or something. As I go to get up, I don't pull the comforter completely out from being warped around underneath me in my tired state, so I end up falling ever so gracefully down over the side of my bed with a loud thud. I let out a pained groan and prop up onto my elbows.

"Hehe."

I hear quietly and immediately sit up and look around the room, wondering what the hell that was. Although I'm pretty sure it was a laugh, from where though, I wasn't sure. A thought comes to mind and I look over my bed to the other side that the mirror is on. But don't see anything. I think it's probably nothing and go to stand up again. But my foot catches on my comforter and I go descending on to the hardwood flooring yet again with another thud.

"Hehehehe."

I sit up quickly and pop my head up and over the side of my bed and look right at the mirror. This time when I look at it, I see an orange figure in it. Looking at me, smiling. I manage to stand up this time and grip the comforter tightly around me. I stare at the boy now occupying a section in my closet mirror again.

"W-who are you?" I manage to get out and ask.

The smile on his face fades away and he looks down, now wearing a more somber expression. It's then that I notice the full appearance of the boy. An orange hoodie, with navy jeans, black and white worn out running shoes and blond hair poking out a bit from under his hood. And just as soon as I take in his appearance, he starts to fade away.

"Wait!" I shout, but he's gone by the time the words escape my mouth.

I stare at my reflection, the only being now in it. I just stand there, half expecting to see him appear in it again or something. Unsure if what I just saw, was even real. But I heard something, I heard him. I want to play it off as me being tired but, I'm no longer tired and I know what I heard. And with that thought, I get dressed and head out for the day. Wanting to clear my head, and not wanting to be home.

...

By the time I get back, my mother is in the kitchen preparing something. I glance at the clock and see that it's 4:30pm. I realize I was outside walking around practically all day.

"Oh Craig you're back," my mother says noticing me, "where have you been all day?"

"Seeing the sights and stuff," I reply.

"I see, well welcome back. Dinner's going to be ready in about half an hour," she tells me.

"Ok," I reply before heading upstairs.

I look to the mirror when entering my room like usual, but see nothing there. I'm still trying to come to terms with what I saw before. I walk over to my dresser, get a change of clothes, put them on and head back down stairs.

The rest of the weekend passes by uneventfully and a part of me is both relived by it and curious to it. Mainly because of the raising questions I have in my head right now. The biggest one being of course, about the boy in the mirror and just who was he?

I go to school and when lunch comes around, I find myself walking down the main hall. I'm a bit lost in thought when my gaze lands on a picture in the sports memorabilia display case. I'm not sure why this picture catches my attention, but I walk over to it and take a closer look at it. It's a picture of an 8th grade baseball team, that came in 2nd place. Everyone in it seems none to thrilled to be there.

I scan the faces of the people in it. I recognize most of them as others who are in my current classes now. My gaze stops when I notice a familiar face, one I had only seen on a reflective surface recently. I lean in closer trying to get a better view on the face just to make sure I was seeing things right.

"Hiya Craig!" A voice says breaking the silence suddenly. And I nearly jump because of it. I look to see who it is.

Butters.

"O-oh sorry there, I didn't mean to startle you," he says.

I shake my head, "You didn't."

He tilts his head slightly, "Whatcha doing?"

I look at the picture again, "Nothing really, was just bored so decided to look at some of these pictures of the school's sports teams," I tell him.

He nods his head, "Yeah, I sometimes like to look at these here pictures too."

I decide to take the chance and ask him about the picture, "Hey, who's this? In-between you and Stan?" I ask pointing at it, "I don't think I've seen him here before."

Butters looks at it, "Oh, that's an old group photo of our old baseball team. Was the last year of it at our school before it ended for good. And the one you're pointing at is Kenny."

"Kenny?" I repeat.

"Mhmm, Kenny there was one of our good friends, me, Stan, Kyle and Cartman's, before he..." he trails off.

"Before what?"

"Well, he went missing a while back, and no one knows what happened to him. His parents think that he ran away, but me and the other fellas didn't really think he'd just leave without saying anything. So we put up missing posters and articles in the newspaper of him. But nothing ever came up about him. So we eventually had to stop looking," he explains.

I stare at the picture, "I see... "

"It's too bad you didn't get to meet him, I have a feeling you two would've gotten along," he says.

"What makes you think that?" I ask glancing at him.

"It's just that, he always had a way of getting along well with people. I have a feeling he would've gotten along well with you too then."

"...Maybe," I reply quietly.

"Anyways, I better get back to heading to the library before lunch ends, I need to find a book for that English assignment we got in class today," he turns to head off, "see ya later," he waves.

I return it with a slight nod of the head before my thoughts are over taken again of this strange boy, Kenny.

My curiosity on him grows throughout the rest of the day, so when the end of the day comes, I head to the library and do some searching. I look through the school's website and old news posts, but don't find out much about him, just a couple of old photo's with him in them. I call it a night as the sun begins setting and decide to try my luck again tomorrow. A brief thought comes to mind of using my computer at home in my room. But the thought makes me feel strangely uneasy for some reason. I feel like something might creep up on me from behind while I'm on it or something. I know the thought's dumb, but even so. I don't feel like testing it out.

When I get home, it's already dark out. I set my things down and get ready for the night. I try to go to bed, but find that I can't. I keep glancing at the mirror every two seconds to see if something is there. Needless to say, I ended up sleeping downstairs on the couch again. But still couldn't get a good nights rest from all the thoughts running through my mind. So when I'm woken up from drifting off in class, I'm not exactly all chipper. I end up spending most of the morning glaring at people or sleeping with my head down on my desk.

At lunch I spend it in the library looking for more clues on Kenny. I of course, don't find anything and sit down at one of the tables in the library and try to get a bit of rest. I come to a short while later being shaken awake by someone.

"Craig?" the voice says, and I let out a groan in response, "Craig," it says again and I peel open an eye to see who it is.

Butters. I should have had a feeling it was him.

I sit up, "What?" I mumble and wipe away some drool from my mouth, feeling annoyed to have been woken up yet again.

"Sorry to have woken you up from your sleep, but I was getting a couple other things for the English assignment and was about to leave here when the bell rang and I saw you sleeping over here. I thought I should wake you up to let you know, didn't think you'd want to miss your next class or anything," he explains.

"Thanks," I reply flatly.

He smiles sheepishly, "You've been coming here for a few weeks now but haven't really spoken to a lot of people yet. I was wondering if you'd like to come and hangout with me and some of the fellers after school today?" he offers.

I'm about to turn it down but think that maybe I could possibly find out more clues about Kenny and what may have happened two years ago; maybe someone saw something?

"Sure," I reply.

His smile grows wider, "Alright then, I'll let the others know and meet you after school," he says and heads off.

I look down at some of my binders I was sleeping on and see that I drooled a bit on one while sleeping, I wipe it off and get up heading to my next class. After school I go and meet Butters by the school entrance. I see that he's standing with three others, Stan, Kyle and Cartman. Kenny's friends. I hadn't really spoken to them much since my first day here.

When I reach them, Stan turns and says, "Alright we're good now?"

"Yup!" Butters replies and we all start walking.

I ask Butters where we're going and he tells me Stan's place. For the rest of the walk there I don't say anything more, I just listen to the others talk. We reach Stan's place and as we head in he tells us to take our boots off at the door and to take a seat wherever as he heads into the kitchen. I take my boots off and take a seat on an old arm chair.

"Cartman what did I just say?" Stan says coming back out of the kitchen holding some drinks and chips. Cartman looks at Stan as if not knowing what he's talking about, "Boots off."

Cartman scoffs, "Lame," as he takes them off.

"Douche," Stan replies with, and sets everything down onto the small table in front of the couch. He walks over to the TV and takes out some games, "What do you guys feel like playing today?"

"Meh, I'm down for whatever," Kyle says.

"Yeah," Butters agrees

"Although maybe we should play a horror game and watch Cartman cower in fear again," Kyle laughs.

"Ey! I wasn't cowering in fear aight?! I was just surprised is all," Cartman huffs.

"Right," Kyle says.

"Guys game?" Stan asks again.

"I don't know, just put in whatever dude," Kyle tells him.

"Alright, but I don't want to hear any complaining then," Stan says and picks out a game slipping it into a PS4. He grabs two controllers and sits down on the couch.

"PS4's are so lame," Cartman says.

"Shut up Cartman," Stan tells him.

The menu for a basketball game appears.

"Aw man this game?" Cartman asks, "This game is-"

"No complaining. I asked you guys to pick something and you didn't, so be quiet," Stan says cutting Cartman off.

I sit in an awkward silence while I watch them talk and play games. Thinking of how to go about asking of the rumors and stuff. When I feel like I might not get an opening to ask and am about ready to give up for the day, Butters turns to talk to me.

"You ok Craig? You're awfully quiet."

"Yeah I'm fine," I say, "I've uh, just been thinking of what you told me before, about the rumors and stuff."

"The rumors? Why did something happen?" Cartman asks.

I hesitate a bit before replying, "Sort of," I say. With that, all of their attention is drawn to me.

"Like what?" Kyle asks.

I pause to think about what I should say to them. I briefly think of telling them about Kenny but decide against it, thinking it might sound a bit crazy, saying that their friend that went missing is in the closet mirror in my room for some strange reason. For now I'll start off small and just focus on getting information.

"Just... a few things seem like they've been moved around is all," I tell them.

"Moved around?" Stan repeats, "What do you mean? Like a ghost or something?"

I shrug, "I don't know, maybe, I've just noticed stuff has been moved around."

"Ha! I knew it! Ghosts!" Cartman exclaims.

"I was wondering if any of you may have known what happened there? Butters told me a few of the rumors already, but I wondered if you guys knew anything else?" I ask, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible about it.

Cartman grins, "Oh so now that something has happened to you, you want to listen eh? What, not going to storm off again?"

I glare at him and am tempted to flip him off but resist the urge to, not wanting to risk lowering the chances of getting any new info.

"Hmm, well there's no hard proof about what happened there, but we know something did. I mean the only real way to know for sure, would be to ask a police personal that would've been there that day," Kyle says.

"Yeah but, we already tried asking officer Barbrady what happened and he wouldn't say anything, said it was 'none of our concern' and stuff," Cartman says.

There's a brief silence.

"But," Cartman continues, "if we were to bring Craig with us and ask, maybe he'd tell us."

"What do you mean?" Kyle asks.

"If we say that Craig now lives in that house and is concerned about what may have happened there, he may tell us what really happened," Cartman explains.

"Oh true!" Butters agrees.

"It could work," Stan says.

"Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Cartman says and gets up.

"Right now?" I ask.

"You wanna know what happened there don't you?" Cartman asks me, I pause then silently get up, "good," everyone else gets up too.

And we head out.


	4. Chapter 4

As we reach a building that looks like a police station and are about to cross the road to it, but Cartman stops.

"Hey, guys, over here," he tells us heading towards a police car.

We follow and stop beside the police car just as Cartman taps on the window.

It rolls down."Oh hey there kids, what are you all up to?" a bulky like man asks from the car.

"Nothing much really officer Barbrady," Cartman replies, "But we had a question we wanted to ask you about the house incident two and a half years ago,"

The officer shakes his head, "I already told you kids I-"

"Yeah yeah we know, it was none of our concern and act like nothing happened, blah blah blah, but-" Cartman says, "you see our new friend Craig here just moved in to that place not long ago," he points to me and Barbrady looks, "he's been having a few concerns about the house he lives in now, says some weird things have been going on there."

"Weird things?" Barbrady repeats.

"Yeah, says some things have been moved around and stuff, right?" Cartman asks looking at me. I nod my head, "See?" he looks to the officer again, "so we thought that, us being his new friends and all, ought to help ease his mind with some answers. And we figured who better to ask than someone who was there that day?"

"Someone who was there?" Barbrady repeats again.

"Yes, someone who knows what really happened that day, you, officer Barbrady," Cartman tells him.

"Oh," Barbrady pauses, "but I-"

"We know but, don't you want to help out Craig here? Think of how you'd feel being in his place right now, moving in to a new town, not knowing what happened to the current house you live in, only hearing all these rumors about it and then seeing things move around in it. Wouldn't you want to know the truth too? Officer Barbrady? Wouldn't you?" Cartman says trying to persuade him.

Barbrady falls silent for a bit, "A-alright," he finally says, "I'll tell you what happened- but only to ease your friend's mind. Although I don't think hearing the truth will help much. You see, we got a call about a suspicious group around town. At first we didn't pay it too much mind until we started to get calls about missing pets and such. The calls of this unsettling group started to get more frequent, so we decided to start looking in to it more, and eventually connected the dots that they were the ones behind the missing pets."

"What were they doing to the pets?" Stan asks.

"Well you see, they were- how do I put this nicely... well, they were basically sacrificing them," Barbrady replies.

"Sacrificing for what?" Kyle asks.

"Well, the thing about that suspicious group is, they were uh..." Barbrady trails off.

"They were what?" Cartman asks.

Barbrady pauses looking like he's having a hard time saying the next set of words, "Satanist. They were a group of satanist."

Everyone falls silent.

"J-Jesus!" Butters exclaims.

"What?" Kyle says in disbelief.

"Look, I know it may be hard to believe, but it's true," Barbrady goes on, "they were going around stealing pets and using them as scarifies for their rituals and stuff."

"So what happened to them?" Stan asks.

"We were trying to track down what they might do next, we wanted to stop them before it got worse," Barbrady explains.

"Worse how?" Kyle asks, "Do you mean like using people instead?"

Barbrady nods, "Exactly, we didn't want something like that possibly happening, so we upped the searches for them and eventually got a lead when someone called in about suspicious activity in the neighboring home. The caller said they were concerned with a group of people entering a house dressed in cloaks so late at night, carrying strange items. It sounded like the group we were searching for, so we set out to the house. And that's where we found them. They were in a house that was under going some renovations while the real home owners were away. They set one of the rooms on fire trying to burn any evidence away and all took off running. We managed to catch them though, and gather what evidence we could from them. And luckily the fire wasn't big and we were able to put it out ourselves. The home owners at the time weren't to happy that their house was set on fire though," he finishes explaining.

"What happened to the previous home owners anyways?" Kyle asks.

"They moved out, lived there for a while when the renovations were done, then moved out," Brabrady replies.

"Did they say why?" Stan asks.

Barbrady shakes his head, "No, they just left."

"Wow... so satanist," Cartman says then looks at me, "dude your house is so possessed."

A sound goes off on the police car's radio and Barbrady responds to it.

"Well kids I need to get going now. Got a call about a homeless guy trying to rob a store with a syringe," he tells us and starts the car, "it was nice talking to you all, and meeting your new friend there. Hopefully hearing all of that helped you in some way," and with that, he rolls up the window and heads off.

"Looks like we finally got the answers to what happened," Kyle says, "although I'm still having a hard time believing it was a group of satanist..."

"Same," Stan agrees.

"Guess I could understand why it was all kept under wraps now and not talked about," Kyle says.

"What do you mean?" Butters asks.

"It's just that I think that if they had told everyone what was going on, I think a lot of people would be freaked out by it, and would be very weary of talking to others," he explains.

"That's probably true," Stan agrees.

"Pff, I'm just glad those nut jobs are locked up," Cartman scoffs.

"Nut jobs? I feel like the satanic stuff is something that would be right up your ally Cartman," Kyle says.

Cartman glares at him, "Ya, I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you Jew?"

Kyle turns and starts to walk away, "That doesn't make any sense."

Cartman follows him, "You don't make any sense!"

"Great comeback, " Stan says following their lead.

"Looks like everyone is heading back now," Butters says and looks at me, "you know, you seem pretty calm for finding out your house may be haunted or something. If I was in your shoes I'd sure be terrified I think," I turn and start heading off in another direction. "Where are you going?" he asks.

"Heading home, I'm tired and need to clear my head a bit," I tell him.

**…**

By the time I get back home it's dark out, and I feel exhausted from the lack of sleep today. I decide to sleep on the couch again, not wanting to go to my room right now after hearing all that stuff from before and feeling too tired to go upstairs anyways. I sleep for a few hours before I wake up needing to go to the washroom. I head up stairs and go. On my way back I glance at my bedroom's door, it's opened a crack. I stare at the door as and a thought comes to mind.

That being, I haven't yet gotten the answers as to why that boy, Kenny, was still in my mirror yet. And I figure the only real way to get any answers about what happened to him, is to ask the source himself. So I open the door, turn on the overhead light and go in. Maybe it was because of my tired state of mind, or maybe it was me being tired of there still not being an answer to the biggest question yet. Either way a new forming determination had risen in me now and I wanted to know the truth.

One way or another, I will talk to the boy in the mirror.

It's the only real way to get to the bottom of this. However, now my only problem was, how do I get him to appear? I look at the reflective surface, guess talking and hoping he'll appear is the only option, I think to myself and close my bedroom door, not wanting my voice to travel down the hall and wake anyone.

"I... know you're there, so just show yourself already," I say.

Nothing.

I walk closer to it. "Why don't you just appear already and stop messing with me? It's not funny."

Still nothing.

I walk up to the mirror and look at myself in it intently. "I know you can hear me. I heard you laugh before, so don't try and pretend that you can't, just show yourself to me already."

Still nothing happens and I feel a bit frustrated and unsure, wondering if maybe it all really is in my head. I shake the thought from my mind and try one more time.

"...Kenny," I say slowly.

Nothing happens, and I am about to give up, when I notice my eyes reflection begin to change from a dark blueish gray to a light baby blue color. And my face begins to shape differently, my hair turning blonde and my sweater turning orange. The changes in my reflection keep fading in more and more, until it's completely replaced by the familiar boy I had seen before staring back at me. He stares at me blankly for a few seconds, then slowly a smile starts to form across his lips. I take a step backwards, eyes widening; my reflection re-appearing behind him.

"That's your name right? Kenny?" I ask.

"Interesting..." he says.

"W-what is?" I ask.

"You," he replies, I give a confused look, "usually when people see me they run away screaming, shouting ghosts and stuff, but you... didn't do that. Even after seeing me the first time you didn't. You looked in to it more to find out who I was, it's interesting."

Was it that interesting? Although if everyone ran away each time I appeared in a mirror randomly, I guess I might think that too. Even though this all seems far more bizarre and strange more than anything to me.

I look at him and get straight to the point, "Why are you in my mirror?" I ask. The smile on his face disappears and he falls silent, "Look, I just want to know why there's a random person in my closet mirror and know how they got there. I mean wouldn't you want to know the same if you were in my shoes?" I pause, "Besides if you tell me, maybe I don't know... I could help you out somehow?"

He looks at me, not saying anything, just looking at me. His gaze makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, but gradually the smile returns to his face.

"Of course," he says, "to be honest it might be good that I can finally tell my story to someone. But I'm not sure if there's much you can do to help. What do you know about me so far?"

I pause to think back on what I've found out about him, "I know that you went missing about two years ago," I had recalled from that old sports picture I saw before, " and that you went to the same school I'm going to now, and you were friends with some of the kids in my class."

"I see... what about this house you live in? Do you know what happened here?" he asks.

I think back on what I was told yesterday about it, "There was something to do with a police bust and a fire."

"Do you know what the bust was for?"

I hesitate before saying it, because it still seemed so ridiculous to me, "Cultist, for a satanic group."

He smirks a bit, "Well then, this should make my story a bit easier to explain to you. Although I don't know if you'll even really believe it, it's pretty out there."

I look at him blankly, "I'm talking to a person in my bedroom's closet mirror right now, try me."

"Good point," he chuckles a bit, "Hmm let's see, I was walking home one evening after hanging around Stark's pond and because I lived in a not so great part of town, shit was always happening there. So when I walked past an alleyway and got grabbed, I just figured it was more typical bullshit happening, like getting mugged. But when I saw it was some weirdos in cloaks, I had a feeling it wasn't that. They threw a bag over my head, bound me and put me in a car. Next thing I know I'm being carried, and when the bag comes off, I'm sitting here in this room," and he points around the room, " Anyways, turns out the people who kidnapped me were those satanic cultist or whatever. They needed a sacrifice for a ritual and figured a person from the poorer part of town wouldn't be missed much. And so I ended up being the unlucky one to be chosen. At first I thought they were going to bleed me to death, but instead they were going to open up a portal and summon Satan or a demon to come through it or something and they wanted me to walk in to it so I would switch places with whatever it was and burn in hell for all eternity, " he explains and I just stare at him, expressionless.

"You following me so far?" he asks, I just nod my head slightly in response, " Well after the portal opened, they forced me to go through it with a knife held to my spine. I walked in to it but just as I did, there was a mess of sounds. I remember hearing a police siren go off and all the satanist freaking out and packing things up and then a candle being knocked over and things starting to catch on fire. Then shouts, and I think shots even, I'm not to sure it gets a bit fuzzy around that point for me. I know my conscious faded out for a bit and when I came to I was looking at a half burned room. I went to move forward but hit a wall of some sort. Something I couldn't pass. I even tried leaving the room by window or the door but couldn't, I was trapped in here. And that's pretty much what happened and why I'm here," he finish's telling me.

I stare back, not really sure what to say or do. And trying very hard to process everything.

He laughs a bit, "I told you it was a bit out there."

"So what you're saying is that, this mirror was a portal?" I ask, finally managing to say something.

"Yup," he replies.

"And because that ritual or whatever got interrupted, you're stuck in there?"

"Pretty much," he says, "guess I'll spend the rest of my days in here."

I rub the side of my head, "I... don't even know," I mumble out, not being able to form any other words from all that's been told to me just now.

"I know, it's probably a lot to process," he says, "maybe you should lie down or something for a bit, to sort through it."

I nod my head, recalling just how tired I still feel, "I think that might be a good idea," I head over to my bed. As I go to lie down I look back at him.

"What? You need some privacy?" he asks, "Ok then, see you later," and he fades away.

I lie down and try to clear my head. Eventually though, I fall asleep.

When I come to, I see my reflection in the mirror and notice my room is a pinkish hue. I also notice that the overhead light is off now. I spot something on the end of my bed in the mirror. The back of an orange figure with it's head looking in my direction.

I sit up fast, "Jesus Christ!"

It takes me a moment to realize who it is and what happened before I passed out. I relax a bit and rub my eyes.

"Sorry, did I startle you?" Kenny asks, turning so that I can see his face now in the mirror, " Didn't mean to, I just get a bit bored being here all the time."

"So you like to watch me sleep then to past the time?" I mumble out.

He shrugs, "It gives me something to do," to which I just look at him, "what? Don't look at me like that, you're the only interesting thing in here," he tells me.

"Do you watch me when I change to then?" I ask and there's long pause from him, "great, looks like I'll be changing in the washroom from now on then," I say flatly.

He shrugs again, "If you want to, but we're both dudes so it shouldn't matter much."

Even though that's true, I still find the idea of someone watching me get dressed and undressed to be a bit creepy. Especially if said person is watching from a mirror. And the thought runs through my mind of just how long has he been watching me for? Since the day I moved in? I don't know how I feel about that...

"Maybe I'll play videos on my computer, so you can watch something else other than me while I sleep," I say shaking the thought away.

"That would be nice," he says.

"Although I won't be awake to play more videos after they end."

"It's ok, I can just hit repeat or something," he tells me.

"Are you able to interact with things?" I ask, thinking back on how I remembered that it seemed like some things had been moved around before.

"You mean in your room?" he asks back.

"Yeah."

"With objects, yeah I can," he says.

"And what about with people?" I ask.

"Well with that..." he walks over to where I am sitting on the bed and reaches a hand down to my shirt. He lifts the bottom of it up, "You see, I can touch and move inanimate objects pretty easily, but for people..." he pulls the bottom of my shirt up a bit revealing my stomach and places his hand over it, "it takes a lot of energy to touch living things, and I can't actually feel anything I touch but this kind of numb pressure if I do," he explains.

I look down at my stomach, there are very faint finger imprints on it. I watch them move slowly across the surface of my skin, when they travel a little too close to my pants waistline a weird shiver runs through me.

"It does feel like a numbing pressure," I say glancing back at the mirror, and I realize just how low his hand is when I do.

He slowly moves his hand away, "Yeah..." he mumbles.

"Anyways, I've cleared my head a bit now," I say changing the topic, "you said that they did some kind of ritual and you had to pass through the mirror for it or something?" I ask and he nods his head, "Well what if we were to do it again? Do you think you'd be able to get out of there?"

He looks at me, "I don't know, maybe, I mean it's possible. I hadn't really thought about it actually. Just kind of gave up and accepted my fate."

"Well, I'm going to try it and see if it will work," I tell him.

His eyes widen a bit, "You really want to help me?"

I shrug, "Sure, I mean if I was trapped in a mirror, I'd want someone to help me."

He smiles, "I see... thank you then."

I nod my head, "So um, do you remember how the ritual or whatever went?" I ask.

"Sort of, there were candles, an animal skull, a red circle on the ground, I'm not sure if it was blood or paint though..." he pauses trying to think back, "That's all I can remember really. The room was dimly lit so it was hard to tell."

"Are you sure there was nothing else you can recall?" I ask.

He pauses again, "There was this book, it was red and made out of leather I think."

"A book?" I repeat.

"Yeah, they read the spell that opened the portal and trapped me in here from it," he tells me.

'Maybe if I can find that book, I can figure out how the ritual went,' I think to myself, I get up and walk over to my computer desk and grab a notebook and pen from it, then sit back down on my bed.

"Can you remember exactly what it looked like?" I ask.

"I think so," he replies.

I look down at my notebook opening to a blank page, I draw a square on it, "Ok, now what did it look like?" I ask and he explains it to me.

I try my best to draw it down, however after a few tries at it, he tells me to let him do it. I place the notebook and pen on the bed and watch as he picks the pen up and starts drawing with it on the paper. It's a strange thing to see, the pen looks like it's moving on it's own but looking at the mirror, shows him holding it and drawing it down.

"There," he says after finishing it, "this is what I remember it looking like."

I pick up the notebook and look over the drawing. The drawing of the book has a big circle on it with an upside down cross in the center of it and a few other smaller markings in and around the circle.

"The circle and cross are golden. And I know some of the markings aren't clear, I couldn't remember exact details of them because they were to small," he explains.

"It's alright," I tell him getting up and heading back over to my computer desk.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Looking for information on this book," I tell him turning the computer on.

I search for anything I can to find out more information on this book until I have to get ready for school, but end up empty handed. I decide to try looking some more at lunch time in the school's library and head off.


	5. Chapter 5

I spend the whole day with my thoughts being preoccupied on everything that's happened in a short time. There was still a few things running through my mind, but I had a feeling things would sort out over the days. I spend lunch looking up any information on this book, but don't find anything still. Though I wasn't determined to quit just yet.

When school ends, Butters asks again if I would like to hangout with him and the others after school. I decline though and tell him I'm busy and head home. As soon as I get back home, I continue doing more searching on my computer. After a few hours go by of nothing turning up again, I take a break and watch some videos online. When night comes, I set up a video playlist of things for Kenny to watch while I sleep and let them auto play.

The next day I wake up to the sun shinning in my eyes and turn my head to look away from it. My gaze lands on the mirror, it's usual occupant is not there. I notice the time reflected in it and realize how early it still is. I decide to get up and head down stairs to get something to eat. After eating I head back up and get a change of clothes and go take a shower. After I finish, I walk back into my room still drying my hair off with the towel wrapped around it.

"You're up early," a voice suddenly says and it causes me to jump a bit. I remove the towel from my head and turn to the mirror to see Kenny now in it. "But you did go to bed pretty early last night, so it makes sense."

I toss the towel onto my computer chair and sit down onto my bed. "My sleep schedule has been all over the place lately," I say and look over to the door as a thought comes to mind, " I think, I hung around with a group of people who were your friends before, recently..."

"Oh really? Who were they?" he asks.

I think back for a moment, "Stan, Kyle, Butters and Cartman," I tell him.

"How did you know that I hung around with them?"

"Butters told me when I saw an old sports picture with you in it," I reply.

"I see," he smiles a bit, " how was it?"

I shrug, "It was fine, I guess."

"You sound like you had lots of fun with them," he laughs.

"Well I had mainly hung out with them to see if I could get any information on the house. We had went to see an officer about what had happened here and he told us everything he saw and did that day," I explain, "Also it seems like no one knows that you were connected with any of this."

He looks down a bit as if lost in thought somewhat, "I see..." he quietly says. He looks back at me and smiles faintly, "You know, you really are an interesting person."

"What do you mean?" I ask somewhat confused.

He shakes his head, "It's nothing," he replies, "by the way, did you tell my friends what happened to me?"

I find the sudden topic change a bit strange but don't press it.

"No, I thought about it, but thought that telling them that their friend that's been missing for over two years, has been inside the closet mirror in my bedroom, might of sounded just a tad bit crazy," I tell him.

He laughs, "That's a good point."

"Do you want me to tell them?" I ask.

"If you want to, but like you said before, it might sound just a 'tad' bit crazy to hear," he says.

"Guess that will have to wait for now then," I say.

"I guess," he says, "you could become friends with them in the meantime, to try and ease it in more though. So that way if you do tell them, they won't think you're completely nuts."

"I'll think about it..." I say.

"Think about it?" he repeats.

"It's just that, I'm not exactly the most- or easiest person to get along with. I tend to have a bit of an off putting personalty sometimes when it comes to talking with people," I explain.

"You seem fine to me," he says.

I fall silent again.

"Look," Kenny says, and I can see that he has moved to sit next to me in the mirror, "don't think it over too hard, just be yourself, most people in that school are pretty chill and you might find that you get along with some of them pretty well. Just, don't stress about it too much or anything," I see him raise a hand up slowly and go to put it on my shoulder. He pauses for a moment before carefully pressing down on it. I feel my shirt tighten a bit where his hand now rest. "From the short amount of time I've talked to you, you seem pretty nice, so just do you," he moves his hand away.

I feel my shirt loosen, then hear what sounds like a shower turning on and someone heading downstairs. I then hear a knock on my door.

"Craig?" my mother asks, "Are you up?"

"Yeah," I reply.

I look at the clock and see that quite a bit of time went by with just talking. I look back at the mirror to see that Kenny is gone from it once again. A strange feeling rises in me at that but I ignore it and stand up and get ready for school.

...

The morning goes by like usual and when lunch comes I look around the cafeteria and notice Kenny's group of friends. I think back on what he told me earlier and head over to them.

"Mind if I sit here?" I ask.

Kyle glances up at me briefly then says, "Go ahead," before going back to his lunch.

And I see Stan shrug, Butters smile and Cartman doesn't really respond, he just goes about eating his food. I sit down and It goes quiet for a few moments.

"So, anything new happen in your demon possessed house?" Cartman asks, to which Stan jabs him in the side, "Ow- what? I'm just asking because I know you guys wanna know to."

I lean an elbow on the table, "It's fine," I say, "if you want to know, just ask," and they all look at one another, then at me like they're about ready to ask something.

"Hey," a voice greets.

I look to see Clyde, Token and Jason standing at our table now.

"Oh, hey," Stan greets back.

Clyde takes a seat next to him, "What's up?" he asks.

"Not much just talking to Craig about his possessed house," Cartman says.

Clyde arch an eyebrow, "Possessed?"

Cartman nods his head, "Yeah man, you have no idea-"

Stan jabs at Cartman's side again,"Dude! Do you really think we should be telling everyone?"

"It's fine, Craig said he was fine with it now right?" Cartman asks looking at me.

I shrug, "Whatever."

"There you see? All good," Cartman says.

"What happened?" Token asks taking a seat next to Clyde.

"Well you see..." Cartman starts and goes on to talk about what happened yesterday.

I notice that Jason is still standing though, I also notice him looking at me. I look away, down at my food, and he takes a seat next to me causing me to glance over at him again. Luckily he's looking at the others talk now. His knee touches mine a bit and I shift away from it.

I don't know why, but since the day I met him at this school a little while back. Jason has always sort of creeped me out a bit. Although I've never really spoken to him much and everyone seems fine around him, so maybe it's just my dumb imagination, but still...

He creeps me out for some reason.

The rest of lunch goes by with Cartman re-telling the things we were told yesterday by Barbrady. When the school day ends and I'm asked if I want to hang out again, I decide to take Kenny's advice and try to become friends with them.

About a week and a half goes by and I'm still trying to look for clues on the whereabouts of that book, but still finding nothing. I let out an exasperated sigh as I fall down backwards onto my bed.

"Still nothing," I mumble, "there's got to be something I'm missing..." I tilt my head to the mirror and look around at my room's reflection, "maybe I'll paint my room," I think aloud.

"What color?" I hear and see Kenny appear next to me on the bed.

"I don't know yet... maybe blue," I say.

"Is blue your favorite color?" he asks.

"I guess so."

"You guess?"

"Well I like it a lot, so I guess it is," I explain.

He laughs a bit, "I see."

These types of conversations between me and Kenny have turned into an almost daily thing. And I wonder if others would still find talking to someone in their closet mirror strange at this point if they were in my shoes. I also wonder if people would find it odd at how fast I adjusted to him being here.

"Do you sleep?" I ask raising onto my elbows, "cause sometimes you're here and other times you're not."

"Sort of," he says, "it's a bit hard to explain, but like, it takes energy to appear in front of you and even more to interact with things. For the most part, I can be visible to you for most of the day before I fade away and need to recharge. I tend to fade in and out throughout the day so I don't use it all up at once," he explains.

"Do you go in to a completely dormant state when that happens?" I ask.

"It's more like, you can't see me or hear me but, I can still hear and see you," he tells me.

"So you can always see me then?"

"Yup."

"Well that's not creepy at all," I say and sit up.

"Sorry, it's not exactly something I can control," he shrugs, "but if it creeps you out that much, I can close my eyes and block my ears so you can have 'alone time'."

"Alone time?" I repeat.

"Yeah, I know a man has needs to attend to," he says and I give him a pointed look, "hey, all I'm saying is just let me know if you need to-"

"I'm good," I cut him off flatly and he snorts, "so anyways, what's the longest you've gone staying visible?" I ask getting back on topic.

"About sixteen hours I'd say."

"And how long did it take till you came back?"

"About three days." he answers.

"That's quite a bit of time to recover."

He nods his head, "I don't really get how this whole thing works even, and I've been in here for like two years," he says as he lies down.

"So you never feel hungry or anything while in there?"

"Nope, it's like because, I'm in some inbetween place, my body doesn't need it or something."

"So you don't grow or anything then?"

"Not sure," he says and looks at me, "how tall are you?"

"5'9," I tell him.

"Stand up," he says getting to his feet. I stand up and he stands right next to me, "Last time I measured myself I was 5'7. At least from what I remember anyways," he takes his hand and puts it from his head to mine, "turn," he instructs and I do.

He faces me and keeps his hand up. I still find it odd how, even though he's there, right in front of me, I feel no presence of him. If I were able to see him though, I'd see his face probably inches away from mine. The thought gives me a weird feeling and I push it away.

"I seem to be about an inch taller than you," he says putting his hand down and moving away, "huh, looks like I'm still aging in here, guess that means I would spend the rest of my days in here until I got old and died," I sit back down onto the bed, "I really don't get how being trapped in here works," he sighs and takes a seat next to me, "so you been hanging out with people more lately?" he asks changing the subject.

"Kind of," I reply.

"Who?" he asks.

"Well, your group of friends."

He arches an eyebrow slightly, "And how is that going?"

"Ok I guess, I don't really talk much, and most of the stuff I do end up talking about while with them is about my house," I say.

"It's a start, " he shrugs.

"I guess, although I'm not too keen on hanging around with Cartman, he's a bit of an asshole," I say flatly.

Kenny laughs a bit, "Yeah that's how pretty much everyone sees him as."

"Why do you guys hang around him?" I ask.

"He hangs around us," he replies.

There's a bit of a pause.

"What if I bring them here instead?" I ask.

"You mean here to your room?" he asks curiously.

"Yeah, they are always asking about my house, so maybe I should just invite them over so they can see it and you, for themselves. It might be easier than explaining your current state," I tell him.

"That might work... I'm sure they're reactions to seeing me like this would be something else," he says as if thinking about it.

"Do you not want me to bring them here?" I ask.

He shakes his head, "Nah, it's fine. It's just been a while since I last saw them is all, and I'm not to sure how I will react when I see them again."

"Don't you want to see them?" I ask.

"Of course..." he says quietly.

"Then I'm bringing them here."


	6. Chapter 6

When the next day at lunch arrives, I decide that I'm going to ask the others about coming over then.

"Where's Cartman?" Stan asks looking around the lunch table.

"He got in to trouble in math class for calling the teacher a bad name," Butters says, "so he has to stay there for lunch and work on some math problems to think of what he did."

"Good luck with that," Kyle scoffs.

"Do you guys," I say, speaking up and taking my chance to ask now, "want to come over to my place this weekend?" they look at me, "I thought we could hangout at my place if you guys wanted to."

"At the possessed house?" Butters says absentmindedly.

"Butters," Kyle says and gives him a look.

"Oh- uh s-sorry, I didn't-" Butters stutters out quickly, realizing what he had said and trying to apologize.

""It's fine," I tell him, "besides if you guys come over, it might answer some things you may have about the place."

They look at one another then back at me.

"Sure, which day?" Kyle asks.

"Saturday, around two," I tell them.

"What about Eric?" Butters asks.

"I'd prefer he didn't come, if I'm being honest with you all," I say apathetically.

"Alright," Stan says shrugging.

"Sure," Kyle says.

"O-ok then," Butters nods.

And we go about the rest of our lunch eating and talking about a few other things.

Saturday comes and I'm sitting in my room watching Kenny pacing around in the mirror. He eventually takes a seat on the end of my bed, I'm about to ask if he's ok when the doorbell rings. I look at the clock and see it's 2pm.

"They're here..." Kenny mumbles before fading away.

And I really wonder if he's going to be alright with seeing his friends again. I get up and head downstairs. I open the front door and see Stan Butters and Kyle, I let them in and close it. They look around.

"If you guys have something to say just say it," I tell them, they look at me.

"It's just uh... very homey," Butters says.

"What were you expecting? Cobwebs, old rickety floors and falling apart walls?" I ask.

Butters looks away and smiles sheepishly.

"So what did you want to do? Play games, watch a movie?" Stan asks.

"Right..." I say, "Upstairs, we can watch some videos on my computer."

I head up and they follow. As we walk into my room, I notice Kenny is still gone, I walk over to my computer and turn it on as the others look around my room.

"That's a big mirror," Stan says observing it.

"It sure is," Butters agrees.

I take a seat in my computer chair as the desktop icons set up. Kyle and Butters take a seat on my bed while Stan stays standing up. I try to think up what we could watch until Kenny decides to show himself. As I turn around to check one more time though, I see him there, in the mirror. Standing on the other side of the bed. The others are unaware though because they're facing away from the mirror.

"Craig, you ok?" Butters asks.

My attention shifts back to them, "Yeah, I uh, actually asked you guys to come over not just to hangout, but because..."

"Because what?" Kyle asks.

"I have something I wanted you guys to see, but just try not to freak out to much," I tell them and look back at Kenny, he nods.

"Craig?" Stan asks confused.

"Turn around."

"Who said..." Kyle asks trailing off.

They all turn around hesitantly to the mirror. When they fully turn and face it, there's a long pause of silence. The ringing of it growing louder and louder in my ears.

Kenny smiles slightly, "Hey," he says quietly.

"K-Kenny... ?" Butters stammers out.

"Hey Butters," he says and Butters falls backwards fainting.

Kyle looks at me, "What is this?!" he asks both confused and angry, "Is this some kind of joke or something? Because it's-"

"It's not a joke Kyle," Kenny says, Kyle looks back at him, "It's me, actually me."

"I-I don't understand, how are you..." Kyle says shaking his head.

"He's trapped in there." I tell them.

"Trapped?" Stan asks, "How?"

"Remember when we went and talked to that officer? Barbrady. About what happened here before I moved in?" I ask.

"Yeah..." Kyle says.

"Well it turns out that on the day they got caught, they were preforming a ritual trying to open up a portal for something to come through it, and Kenny here was the unlucky victim that they chose to sacrifice or something for it. But because the ritual got interrupted he is..." I trail off.

"Stuck in here," Kenny finishes saying.

"I'm sorry- but this is all just..." Kyle says.

"Believe me, I know," I say, "I had a hard time believing this all too."

Stan walks over to the mirror and touches it, "Is there a way to get him out?" he asks, flattening his hand on the reflective surface.

"I think there might be a way, but it's just a guess," I say.

"What is it?" Stan asks.

"There was a book Kenny told me they had used in the ritual when the portal opened up. So I'm thinking if we can find that book and the spell or whatever it is that they used, then we might be able to get him out," I explain.

"Do you know what this book looks like?" Kyle asks.

"Sort of," I reply and head towards my backpack. I open it up and take out my notebook with the drawing in it, and open to the page it's on, "this is a drawing of it," I point at it showing it to them. Stan walks back over to get a better look. Kyle reaches a hand forward and I hand him the notebook. "I tried searching for what it may be called online, but got no results."

"You said that the satanist group had it?" Kyle asks and I nod my head, " Do you have any leads so far, on what happened to it? Or where it may be?" he hands the notebook to Stan to examine it.

"No, that's why I was asking about the rumors in hopes that someone saw something and it might have helped give me a clue," I explain.

"We're helping you," Stan says putting the notebook down.

"Yeah," Kyle agrees, " Kenny's our friend. We just found out that he's still alive after all this time but is stuck, so we're going to help you look for it."

"Ok," I nod, "it will probably go faster if we're all looking for it anyways."

They look back at the mirror. "Don't worry Kenny, we'll get you out of there," Stan says.

A small smile crosses Kenny's face, "You guys... are really something."

"One more thing," I add and they look at me, "can we keep Cartman out of this as much as possible? I don't want him telling the whole school about Kenny living in the closet mirror in my room."

"Ok," Stan says.

"It might be a bit hard to do because he can be quite nosy, but we'll try," Kyle says.

"I think he's waking up," Stan says now looking down at Butters.

Butters slowly opens his eyes, "Hey fellers, what happened?" he asks looking up at us.

"Guess we should explain it all to him," Kyle says.

After going over everything again to Butters and making sure he didn't faint a second time from seeing Kenny. We all talk of what we should do next and think up any possible leads there could be. We eventually decide to try and talk to Barbrady again, thinking he might know something else. He's the only lead we have right now too. We plan to go and talk to him tomorrow as the others want to stay and talk to Kenny for the remainder of the day and catch up after being away for so long.

We meet up the next day in front of the police station and head in.

"Can I help you kids?" an officer with red hair asks.

"Is officer Barbrady here today?" Kyle asks.

"Barbrady?" the red haired officer repeats back and arches an eyebrow, "Do you kids need something from him?"

"We just want to ask him something, it won't take long," Stan says.

"I see, right, well he's filling out some files over there at his desk," the officer tells us pointing in it's direction

We head off towards it, "Thanks," Kyle says.

As we approach the desk, we see him stop and look up at us.

"Hey officer Barbrady," Stan greets.

"Oh hey kids, what brings you here today?" Barbrady replies.

"We uh, had something that we wanted to talk to you about," Kyle says.

"What is it?" he asks.

"It's... about the incident with the satanist," Kyle says.

Barbrady shakes his head, "I already told you kids all I know about what happened there, I can't talk about it anymore. One of the other employees had their kid ask about it to them. They're keeping a close eye out, to see who leaked the information to the school. So, sorry kids, but I can't."

"Please, we just have one question," Kyle says.

"Sorry kids I can't," Barbardy repeats.

"We think the group had something to do with Kenny going missing," Stan says.

Barbrady looks at him, "You mean your friend that went missing a couple of years ago?"

"Yeah," Kyle replies, "we found something that we think might tell us more about what happened."

"Please we need your help," Butters urges.

Barbrady pauses and looks around the room, then back at us. He let's out a sigh. "Alright, meet me out back after I get off duty tonight. I'll hellp you out when there are less eyes around," he tells us quietly.

"Thanks," Kyle says and we head off.

Evening comes and we wait by the back of the building. A short while later, we see Barbardy come out of the back door.

"Right, what is it you all wanted to know?" he asks us.

The others look at me and I take out a folded piece of paper with a copy image of the book drawing on it.

"Did you see a book like this when you caught those guys before?" I ask and he takes the paper and looks at it.

"Like maybe as evidence or something? Whether it's intact or not," Kyle adds.

Barbrady looks at the image and is quiet for a good while, "Hmmm..."

"It would be red and gold," Stan says.

And as if a sudden thought comes to mind, Barbrady holds the paper up, "Oh! I think I might have seen something like this when we caught them!"

"Really- where?!' Kyle exclaims.

"From the one I caught. When we got to the house they set it on fire and ran, we got a couple in the house and the rest ran outside. The one I was chasing down, I think had something red and square in his hands. I had chased him down in to the woods, but lost track of him for a bit. When I did manage to find and catch him though, whatever it was that he was holding, was gone," he explains.

"The woods?" Stan asks.

"Can you show us where the area was that you caught him?" Kyle asks.

Barbrady tilts his head slightly, as if puzzled, "I don't see how this will be helpful for finding your missing friend."

"Trust us it will," Stan says.

Barbrady looks us over, "...If you say so. Follow me."

We follow him to a section of the woods.

"It was around here somewhere when I lost track of him. I caught him a little ways up there," Barbrady tells us pointing in the direction, "I looked around here myself already to see if I could find what it was he was holding before, but found nothing."

"Thank you for the help," Stan says.

Barbrady nods a bit, "Not sure of how much help I've been or how this all ties in to your missing friend, but glad I could help anyways."

"We're going to take a look around," Kyle says.

"Alright, but don't stay here too long," Barbrady tells us, "it's starting to get dark out."

"We won't," Butters says.

And with that, Barbrady heads off. We look around the area a bit longer until it gets too dark to see much. We head out of the woods and back into town and decide to try looking around again tomorrow. We all say our goodbyes and part ways. When I get back I tell Kenny of what happened and then go to bed.

**…**

For the next some days, we go and check the woods over and over, but find nothing. We come to the conclusion that the book might be buried somewhere or hidden underneath something. And with all the snow that's piled up right now from the cold winter, it would make it harder to search for it. We all decide it might be best to do a search for it when spring comes and the snow melts away. Although the choice to wait wasn't easy, we think it's our best option for now.


	7. Chapter 7

A few months go by, and we go about our daily lives doing typical stuff for the most part. Kyle and Stan would come over frequently to see Kenny and in doing so, I got to know them quite well. Butters too would come over, but he seemed to have stricter parents that made it hard for him to join us as much.

We would try and look up research on what this book could be, like, where it originated from and stuff, but we always seemed to come up empty handed. It's been interesting though, I spent some holidays at home and in a sense with Kenny. Like Christmas, New Years, Valentines and soon to be Easter as well. I also painted my room, blue, like I said I would. Kenny helped out a bit too. I still find it interesting how things he picks up, just float in the air, but you would look at the mirror and see him holding it.

It's funny, this whole situation I'm in, with me being here in the real world and him being in that mirror... I'm sure most people would find all this to be ridiculous and all that. But as strange as it might seem, I don't. For some reason, I don't find this weird or strange at all. And maybe that's because of how much time has passed by and I've grown used to it or how I just seem to adjust to things quicker than most but, this seems almost normal to me now.

Waking up and seeing him, then leaving for school and hanging out with Stan, Kyle, Butters and a few others at school or after, then coming back home and talking to Kenny some more before heading off to sleep. The two of us have grown to be pretty close in this time I think. We've learned about one another a lot. He's told me about his family, and the dumb things that he and his friends would do, and things he thought of possibly being when he grew up, and more.

I also told him about my family and how things were like in the city I lived in before and what I did there and stuff. The topic came of him asking why we moved out of the city in the fist place. I told him it was my dad's idea mainly, and how he thought it would be better for us to have a change of pace in our lives. He was able to convince my mom to agree and we ended up moving out here. My dad had a friend here who was able to help him out and get a job and stuff. And I told him while I initially resented my dad for making us move out in to the middle of nowhere, and leaving behind the few friends I had made there. I'm glad we did now, because I got to meet him. The last part kind of slipped out by accident and I ended up trying to play it off for the remainder on that day. Kenny just smiled at me and said he was glad to have met me too.

**...**

More and more snow begins to gradually melt away as spring starts setting in and soon we'll be able to go searching the floor of the woods. That's what I think to myself trying to sleep this night, but having a hard time doing so, after waking up a little while ago to see Kenny sitting behind me, watching me sleep.

This sometimes happens, I'll wake up at an odd hour of the night and see him sitting on my bed somewhere watching me sleep. Usually he'll only look at me for a few minutes or so before fading away again, but for some reason tonight he won't. I have my eyes only slightly opened and I think he can't tell I'm awake yet because of the darkness in the room. I look at the time on the alarm clock's reflection in the mirror and see that it's now 3:15am. He's been watching me for about forty-five minutes or so now.

I'm about ready to just sit up and ask him why when he lifts a hand up and places it onto my shoulder. I feel the fabric of the comforter tighten a bit where his hand now rests. And I see him begin to slowly move his hand down my side, the comforter tightening as he does so. His hand comes to a stop on my hip and I briefly wonder what the expression on his face is for some reason. But it's too dark to tell.

He moves his hand away from my hip and places it in front of me, so that he is now leaning over me. I end up closing my eyes completely, not wanting him to notice I'm awake. For a while I don't feel anything except for the small pull of the comforter under where his hand is in front of me. But then I feel something lightly move my hair at the top of my head and slowly make it's way to the back of it. Then down my neck and stop on the top of my back.

There's another short pause of nothing happening until I feel a shift from the comforter on top of me tightening quite a bit and something on the top of my head again. The feeling of not know what's going on, starts to drive me nuts and I chance a small glance. What I see causes my heart to stop. I see Kenny leaning over me, kissing the top of my head. As he begins to pull away I shut my eyes again. I feel my comforter get lighter around me. I take another small glance and see that Kenny is gone now.

I let out a small breath, not even realizing that I was holding it. The image of Kenny runs through my mind again and again and I feel my heart pound in my chest for some reason. I pull the comforter around me tighter and bury my face in to my pillow a bit trying to make this feeling stop. I close my eyes and try to think of anything else other than what just happened. In the end, all I keep thinking to myself is why did I have to look?

Eventually morning comes and it's time to get up and ready for school. I feel very tired from the lack of sleep I got but groggily get up. Kenny doesn't appear and a part of me is kind of glad he doesn't, because I'm not to sure how I would react to seeing him right now. I get out of bed and get ready for the day.

At lunch that day we briefly talk about going out later that day to take a look around the woods and see how it's current condition is before Cartman joins us at the table. The day goes by fine until science class arrives and we get partnered up with other students for a class project. I end up getting partnered up with none other than Jason. I look at him to see him staring right back at me. He smiles a bit and something about it is unsettling.

Great, the one person that I didn't want to be partnered up with I am... I think to myself.

After school, me, Stan and Kyle meet up to go searching. Butters goes to hangout with Cartman, to keep him preoccupied. We told him to tell Cartman that we're busy today. We head to the woods and look around, the floor of the woods is almost clear so we decide to end up searching the area. When it starts to get dark out we head back. It's much easier to search the ground now but we still think it best to wait a little bit more for the snow to fully melt.

I get home and change into more comfortable clothes then sit on my bed taking out some homework I need to do.

"Back late today, did you go searching?" Kenny, who I see appearing in the mirror from the corner of my eye asks.

"Yeah," I reply keeping my gaze focused down at my binder.

"No luck?" he asks.

"Nope," I reply.

"Maybe next time then," he says and I can see him walk over to my bed.

He sits down in front of me and my chest tightens. I look down more at my binder, trying to block him out, don't look at him, don't look at him, don't look at him-

"What are you working on?" he asks and I feel the bed sink down a little in front of me.

And me being curious, glances over at the mirror to see Kenny leaning towards me looking down at my binder. Images of last night flash through my mind and I end up pulling away from him holding the binder to my chest. I see him give me a strange look and I stand up.

"It's- some homework that I need to do," I walk over to the door, " I think that I'm going to work on it downstairs. I don't want any distractions," I say before leaving the room.

I sit on the couch downstairs and manage to calm my heart down and finish up my homework. When I go to head back upstairs after finishing it I stop, still remembering what happened from the night before. I end up choosing to sleep downstairs that night and deciding to tell Kenny that, I just was too tired to make it back up to my room after finishing my homework.

Although for the next few days, I find myself avoiding talking to him too much.

I find that being around him, starts to make it hard for me to breath almost. I try my best though to pretend that everything is fine with me. When the end of science class on Friday arrives, I realize I have another thing to deal with too. Jason. I had also been avoiding him, although for a much different reason than Kenny.

Jason comes up and talks to me, saying that we need to get to work on the project that is due Monday. I don't like the idea of having to be around him longer than necessary, but reluctantly suggest he come over to my house on Saturday to work on it, because I sure as hell didn't want to go to his place. He smiles at me and tells me that he 'can't wait then' and a cold shiver runs through me.

And so, I now sit in my room this Saturday waiting for Jason to arrive so I can get this dumb project done and over with. I let out a sigh.

"What's wrong?" Kenny asks.

"Nothing really," I say, "just someone from my science class is coming over to work on a dumb project or whatever."

"What's the project on?"

"The human body," I say, "things like, the digestive system and blood cells and stuff."

"Sounds like a blast," he laughs. I let out another sigh, "Are you sure you're ok? You seem kind of... off or something. Actually you've been seeming kind of off this whole week."

I think briefly of how the way I've been acting around him must seem like that, but shake my head a bit knowing that today's reason was for something else.

"I'm fine, it's just that.." I trail off.

"Just what?" he asks.

"Just that, the person I got partnered up with... they, kind of creep me out a bit is all."

"Who did you get partnered up with?"

"Jason." I reply.

"Oh him," he says.

"You know him?"

"Not really, I mean, sometimes he hung around us at lunch or school events before, but I never really knew him that well," he tells me, "but I can kind of understand why you might find him creepy," he laughs a bit, "he does have a bit of a look to one I guess. But I'm sure everything will go by fine though."

I look down at my lap,"Right..." I mumble, "I think I'm going to work on it in here with him. I don't really like the idea of being fully alone with him, because my parents are at work today and my sister is hanging over at a friends."

"Sure," Kenny says, "if it will make you feel more at ease with me being here as a spiritual support."

I look at him and smile faintly. He returns it with a smile of his own.

The door bell rings, "He's here," Kenny sing-songs.

I get up and glance once more at Kenny as he fades away. I shake my head and go downstairs. I open the door and see Jason, he gives a small smile. I don't return it.

"Hello," he greets.

"...Hey," I reply.

"Are you going to let me in?" he asks still smiling a bit. I hesitate for a few seconds before I step to the side allowing him to enter. He glances around the house, "Everyone is always talking about how haunted and spooky this house is, but it looks like any normal house to me."

I close the door and lock it, "Well people always have a way of blowing things out of proportion," I say.

He looks at me, "I heard it was possessed by a demon."

"Like I said, 'out of proportion'," I repeat and head for the stairs, "by the way, we can work on the project upstairs in my room. I Have my computer there we can use to look stuff up and a few other things I did already for it," and with that I head up the stairs, he follows me and we head into my room.

I head over to my computer desk and get some papers I have with some of the project stuff written down on them.

"That's a huge ass mirror," Jason says examining.

"Yup," I say and sit down on the side of my bed, sorting the papers out. Jason walks over to me, "You can take a seat in the computer chair if you want-" I go to suggest but he ends up sitting down next to me on my bed, "or there too," I mutter.

He looks down at the papers and picks one up, "You've done this much already? Wow."

"I figured I might as well do as much as I can, so I don't waste up all of your time today and you can be on your way sooner," I tell him.

He looks up at me, "You make it sound like you want to get rid of me as quickly as possible."

Although that is true, I try not to let it seem too obvious, "No, I just thought you would want to head home and play games or sleep or whatever you like to do for fun quicker, rather than spending all day here, working on a class project," I explain.

He shrugs, "I don't really care about working on it all day or whatever, but alright," he says placing the paper back down.

I collect the papers and put them in the proper order and start reading over them to him. Everything is going fine and I start to feel a bit more at ease around him until he starts to ask me a bunch of personal questions.

"Hey, do you ever, like, check yourself out in the mirror?" Jason asks.

"Huh?" I respond looking up from the paper I was reading, "No."

"Really? So you never do any poses or anything than in front of it?"

"No," I reply flatly.

He looks at me, and I would just brush it off if, it weren't for the fact of how he was looking at me. I feel his eyes look me over from top to bottom and I try to shift away a bit from him.

"What about skinny dipping? You ever done that? Or streaking?" he asks, to which I shake my head no at, as the feeling of unease starts to rise in me again, "What about touching yourself? You ever experiment with yourself?"

The question catches me so off guard, it takes me a few seconds to even process what he just said to me. What I find to be the most off about it is how nonchalant he went about asking me it, as if it were a normal thing to ask somebody.

"What- no," I say.

"Why not?" he asks.

I shake my head, "Look, can we just stay on topic for the project and get it done?"

"We are on topic though, I'm asking questions about what you do with your body. A human body," he says.

"That's not-"

"But from what I've heard so far, you haven't really been exploring all of the things that a human body could do," he smiles at me slightly, "maybe we should do a bit of experimenting to help you find out more."

And with that I stand up, having enough of this creepy conversation. "I think you should go, now."

He stands up to and faces me,"But why? Things were just starting to get really interesting with this project."

"Leave," I order.

He doesn't budge though, so I decide to walk past him to the door in order to leave the room and get away from him. But as soon as I walk past, he grabs my wrist. I pull my arm away trying to break it free.

"Let go-" but before I can finish the words, everything goes by me in a blur and I find myself lying on my back on my bed looking up at the ceiling. Jason crawls on top of me and pins my arms down. "Get off of me!" I shout.

He smiles at me and it sends a chill throughout my body. I struggle to get him off of me but he lies all of his body weight down onto me. His body is much bigger in size to mine and I have a hard time moving underneath it. He let's go of one of my arms and moves his hand down to my pants, trying to undo them. I immediately try to stop him with my freed arm.

"Stop!" I yell at him, trying desperately to get him off me, panic completely taking over me. He undoes my button, "Stop it!" I cry out.

And suddenly the heavy weight on top of me from his body is gone. I see him go flying backwards and slam into the wall then fall down onto the floor.

He staggers getting up to his feet, "What the hell..." he mumbles.

"Get out," a very familiar voice demands.

Jason looks around the room, "Who-" he stops when he looks at the mirror, eyes widening.

I glance over at it and see Kenny standing there in it, wearing a dark expression.

"Y-you're-" Jason stammers.

"Get out!" Kenny demands, shouting at him.

Jason quickly takes a run for the door, heading downstairs and slamming the front door as I hear him leave. I turn onto my side and curl into a ball, trying to calm myself down. Taking in slow deep breaths. As I start to calm down, it sinks in what almost happened to me. I feel my eyes begin to sting, and tears start to roll down my face. Tears of the fear of what almost happened to me. If I had chosen to work on that project anywhere else in the house, I don't think I would've of been able to stop it. And that's the thing that really terrifies me. I feel myself begin to shake at that thought.

"Craig? Are you ok?" I hear Kenny ask in a quiet tone.

Kenny... If Kenny hadn't have been here then... My thought trails off. I feel something wrap around me, my comforter. I look to see that Kenny has pulled it up and over me.

"Craig?" he asks again.

I lower my head back down, into my knees. My only response being quiet and muffled sobs I'm trying to stop from leaving me. I didn't want him to see me like this, to see my face like this.

"Listen, I think you won't be able to see me for a little while," he tells me, "I used up a lot of energy slamming Jason in to the wall like that, so I'll need to recharge for a bit," I feel the comforter on my shoulder tighten a bit, from what I guess is his hand on it. "But I'll still be right here with you, don't forget that."

And the pressure on my shoulder disappears. I look back up at the mirror and see that Kenny is now gone. And even though he said he would still be here, even if I can't see him, it doesn't stop me from feeling all alone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured out how to add images to stories recently. So I decided to add in the cover image I did for this story, as it takes place in this chapter.

A week and a half goes by. I try and go about my daily life like normal. Kenny has yet to reappear in the mirror, so when Stan, Kyle and Butters as to come over to see him, I had to make up something explaining as to why he's not appearing. They didn't press it and just told me to let them know when he does come back. I also decided to spend all of my time at school avoiding Jason and staying as far away from him as possible. Although that turns out to be easy, as he's been avoiding me also ever since the incident. Fucking creep.

And of course it came as no surprise when I ended up getting an F on the project. The mark didn't really matter to me though, not after what happened. Me, Stan, Kyle and Butters also went and bought some shovels, thinking the book could be buried underground somewhere. We're suppose to go searching this up coming weekend for it again now that all the snow is gone, washed away by the rain and the warm sunny days we've been having recently.

I walk over to the mirror and stare at it. Hoping to see it's usual occupant appear in it, but nothing happens. My chest feels heavy and I walk right up to the mirror placing a hand on it's cool surface.

"I miss you," I whisper.

I lean my forehead against it closing my eyes.

Please come back.

My thought echos loudly in my mind, as the silence of the room begins to ring in my ears.

"Sorry, did I make you wait to long?"

I open my eyes hearing the familiar voice. I glance up to see a pair of baby blue eyes staring back at mine.

Kenny.

He's mimicking my pose in the mirror, also leaning his head against it and holding up a hand where mine is. My reflection replaced by him. As I look at him, a faint smile spreads across his face at me.

"I told you I was still here with you," he says.

I close my eyes trying to hold back tears of relief from falling and close my hand into a ball.

"I thought you were gone," I say shaking my head, "I wish you were here."

"I am here."

"I mean here with me," I say opening my eyes to now blurry vision.

"...I wish so too," he says quietly.

**…**

The weekend comes along and I wake up early to go and meet the others. I head to Stan's place where we had all planned on meeting. When I get there, I'm the second to arrive after Kyle. As we wait for Butters to arrive I decide to let them know of Kenny's return in the mirror.

"Oh he's back? Awesome," Stan says.

"Yeah so if you guys want to come over later and see him, let me know," I tell them.

"Alright," Kyle says.

We talk a bit more till there's a knock on the door. Stan opens it and Butters comes in.

"Sorry for the delay fellas, hope you didn't have to wait too long. I had to make up an excuse on where I was headed so early in the morning to my parents," Butters explains, "I-I hope they don't find out the truth though, and I get grounded for digging random holes out in the woods or something."

"It's fine Butters, no one will see us this early," Stan says.

Butters nervously twiddles his thumbs together.

"Ok, let's get going," Kyle says and we head out.

We reach the usual area in the woods and split up, beginning our search. Hours pass, and still nothing turns up. I wish I knew where exactly the book got hidden. I try to play out how I think the chase scene would've been like in my mind. I face the direction my house is in then the direction I think the chase would've most likely been towards. I walk down the path of the imaginary scene playing out in my head.

If I was being chased, where would I hide a book? I wonder to myself. And although it's possible that the book could be buried, something in my gut tells me that the person being chased wouldn't have the time to bury it. At least not very deep. I look up at the tree branches, but something tells me they couldn't have hidden it in the branches because it would take to much time to climb a tree.

I look down at the ground as I continue walking, scanning it. A tree trunk catches my eye, I look at it for a few moments, a small bush covers the hole in it's base. And then, as if a switch turning on in my mind, a thought comes to me. I walk over to the tree, crouching down in front of it. I put the shovel I'm holding down and move the bush out of the way. I cautiously stick my free hand into the tree's trunk.

I feel a bunch of leaves and move them around under my hand. I keep moving my hand around until I feel something solid and cold. My heart almost stops for a moment. I run my fingers along the object, searching for it's side. When I find it, I grab it and pull the object out. My heart begins to beat rapidly as I see the red object emerge from the trunk.

There grasped in my hand, is a red leather book.

I slowly turn it over and am met with an array of symbols and a golden circle and upside down cross on it. I feel a smile spread across my lips.

"No way..." I say to myself in almost disbelief.

I open it and carefully flip through the pages, but see that the words are in another language. I close it, pick the shovel back up as I stand and start calling out to the others. Stan is the first one to arrive.

"Dude what is-" he stops when he notices the object I'm holding in my hands.

Kyle arrives next, "Did something happen?" he asks looking around. He notices Stan's fixated gaze on me and looks over to see why, when his eyes fall on the book in my hands his eyes widen, "Is that..." he trails off.

"Yup," I say holding it up more.

Kyle walks over to me, "I can't believe it, you found it. You actually found it!" he says in disbelief.

Stan walks over to us, "Dude! I was starting to think we might never find that thing out here! I can't believe it either!"

"Hey what's-" Butters says now arriving on the scene. He stops and stares at the book in my hands, "Go-golly! Is that-"

"Yeah man!" Stan says, "We couldn't believe it either."

Butters rushes over to us, "Where did you find it?" he asks.

"In the hole of a tree trunk," I say.

"Seriously?!" Stan exclaims.

"Ugh, how come we didn't think of checking the trunks sooner?" Kyle mutters to himself, "It seems so obvious."

"To be fair the tree trunks were buried under like, five feet of snow," Stan says.

Kyle looks up at me,"Have you looked inside yet?"

"Yeah but," I open the book up, "it's in some kind of foreign language or something," I tell him.

Kyle takes the book and looks through it, "Hmmm, it seems like it's in an old ancient language or something."

"Like Latin?" Butters suggests.

"Maybe," Kyle says.

"We should be able to use this to get Kenny out though right?" Stan asks.

"I think so, if we can find what ritual it was that was used in here. We should be able to," Kyle says and looks at me again, "can I bring this back to my place to look up the language it's in?"

I nod, "Sure."

"Great, I'm going to head back now then and start doing some research on it," Kyle explains, "you guys wanna come?"

Stan and Butters agree, but I decline.

"I'll join you guys later, for now I want to head back home and tell Kenny that we found it," I tell them.

"Ok, we'll see you later then," Kyle smiles.

I wave them off and head back home. I end up almost running all the way back and nearly tripping over a few times from the shovel hitting the ground. When I get back home I rush upstairs to my room.

"Kenny!" I exclaim, "We found it! We finally found it!"

"Huh?" Kenny says confused as he appears in the mirror.

"We found the book!" I tell him.

He pauses for a moment as if processing what I had just said, "Wait- really?!" he says surprised.

I nod my head, "Yeah I found it hidden away in a tree trunk."

He smiles, "That's great Craig! Where is it?"

I place the shovel next to the wall, "Kyle has it right now. He said he wanted to research what language it's in and figure out what ritual it was they used you in."

"I see," Kenny says and takes a seat on my bed, "I can't believe you actually found it."

I take a seat next to him, "The others said the same thing," I smile.

"This is great news though, it's finally been found. You kept on looking for it and you found it."

I nod again, "I told you I was going to help you get out of there."

He smiles a bit, "Indeed you did. Thank you."

I look down, "Guess this means that you'll be able to join us all here then."

I feel the comforter next to my hand move a bit and look up. Kenny's hand is now resting right next to mine.

"Yes," he says softly, "I'll be able to join the others..." he looks at me and smiles, "and you."

I extend my pinky a bit as if to try and touch his slightly, even though I can't feel it.

"All that's left to do now is translate that book. And get the stuff for the ritual when it's figured out," I say to which Kenny hums a bit.

We spend the rest of the night mostly in silence and some small talk about what we can do after he gets out.

**…**

A few weeks go by though, before Kyle reaches a point in the book of what seems to be the spell for the ritual, based off of the information Kenny has given us. The book we find out is in fact in ancient Latin, so there were a lot of sleepless nights on Kyle's part mainly, trying to translate most of it. We also found out that the book was hand made which explained why we couldn't find any information of it online.

The rest of us also tried helping out too though, not wanting Kyle to take on the whole task himself. When we figure out which one it is, we head out in search of the items we'll need for the ritual. We manage to get all the items, candles, blood; which we had to sneak into a blood bank to get, the animal skull; that turned out to be a cow skull we needed and got one from Stan's uncle, and a few other minor things.

We clear a big space in my room, pushing everything to the walls and set up. Painting a circle on the ground with the symbols that are shown in the book, setting the candles up, placing the cow skull, in the center of the circle before we all take our places and stand on the red line spaced out in a circle.

"I hope this works," Stan says.

"Only one way to find out," Kenny says, he looks at Kyle who nods a bit.

"Alright, let's begin," Kyle says and looks down at the book.

He begins reading the words from it out loud. I look over at Kenny. The whole mirror begins to glow brightly as Kyle finishes reading the spell. I squint at the bright light and faintly, ever so faintly, I see a shadow emerge from the light. I walk slowly to the mirror as the shadow grows more and more solid.

"...Kenny?" I say.

And as if on cue, a hand emerges out from the glowing surface, fingers extending as if looking for something. I reach a hand forward and grab it. It holds on to me, and I begin to pull it.

"Guys!" I shout and the others all rush over and grab a hold to.

We all pull, and more of the arm shows it's self, revealing Kenny's orange sweater. We pull until his shoulder is shown, by which point a foot then a leg emerges from it and sets down on to the floor. We keep on pulling until he's all the way out. The light behind him starts to fade a bit and I'm able to look at him properly.

His hood is up, but I can see that familiar face looking back at me appear more and more as the light behind him dies down. Everyone begins letting go of his arm. I go to let go to but his grip on my hand tightens.

He smiles, "You never gave up, thank you," he looks at the others, "thank you everyone."

"Of course man, you're our friend," Stan says smiling back. Butters and Kyle nod in agreement with him.

Kenny closes his eyes smiling faintly to himself. He looks back at me and takes a couple step towards me, he raises my hand up to his face and presses it to his cheek gently. When I feel the warmth of it, my eyes start to sting a bit. Tears beginning to form as it fully sinks in that he's here, actually here in front of me, not inside that mirror anymore.

He continues to hold my hand on his cheek while looking at me, and I hug him.

He's here. I can touch him, I can feel him, I can hold him, he's actually here. I think as I hug him tightly in my arms and he hugs me back.

"Thank you Craig, really" he says softly in my ear, "I'm truly grateful to you," and the sound of his voice changes suddenly in to a deep gritty one, unlike any I have ever heard before.

I pull away from the hug and look at him. And I see that where his baby blue eyes were a moment ago, are now completely black; devoid of any trace of them. A slow wide smile spreads across his lips.

"Kenny?"


	9. Chapter 9

I back away from Kenny.

"Craig?" Kenny asks me, in that unfamiliar deep gritty voice, "What's wrong? Aren't you happy to see me?"

"Kenny... Are you ok?" Butters asks.

Kenny turns to him, "Why yes Butters, I'm just giddy."

I can guess that the others notice his eyes by the change of expression on their faces.

"What's wrong you guys?" Kenny asks in an almost amusing tone, "Why the shocked faces?"

"Kenny? Why are your eyes..." Kyle trails off.

"My eyes? What about them?" Kenny tilts his head slightly, "They have always been like this."

" You're... You're not Kenny are you? You're-" Kyle starts.

"Are you sure about that?" Kenny muses, "Because I'm pretty sure I was the one you all were talking too while I was trapped in that mirror."

"I don't believe you, that was- you couldn't-" Stan says.

"You've all worked so hard to help me, how could I ever repay you all?" Kenny says and looks down at the book in Kyle's hands.

And as if reading his mind on what his intentions are, Kyle hides the book behind himself as Kenny lunges for it. Stan and Butters rush over to grab him.

Kenny let's out a loud hiss, and throws them off of him, lunging at Kyle again and knocking him over.

"Craig!" Kyle yells, "Take it!" and he tosses the book towards me.

I pick it up and see Kenny's head snap towards me.

My grip tightens on the book as a wide smile spreads across Kenny's face.

"Craig," he says in an almost teasing manner, "hand me the book."

I stand there, immobilized and confused, not really sure what I should do.

"Run!" Stan's voice shouts at me.

And it's enough to snap me back into reality, because the next thing I know I'm bolting for the door. I run down the hall to the stairs and just as I turn the corner to head down, I can see Kenny come rushing out of the room after me. In one swift motion I quickly unlock the front door and open it, rushing out into the damp air of the evening that's just setting in. As the door shuts behind me, I hear a loud bang and glance back to see the front door being slammed opened by Kenny. I look forward again and head into the woods nearby, hoping to lose him by cover of trees and bush. I try my best weaving in-between trees to lose his line of sight.

I eventually duck down into a ditch hidden by some bushes after I think I've lost him and wait. I listen for any sounds but hear none. I think of getting up to move again, when I hear a faint snap of a twig. I hold the book closer to my chest.

"Craaaig," I hear the deep gritty voice say, "come out, come out, wherever you are," it sing-songs. I lean against the ditch harder, as if trying to blend in to it. "Come on Craig, don't be like this. Just give me the book, it's all that I want," I hear a low chuckle, "ok, maybe there's one other thing I want too."

There's a very long silence and I think he might have moved on elsewhere. I sit there for a few more moments before deciding to move. I get out of the ditch and go to take a step forward but stop, feeling like I'm being watched all of the sudden. I look around but don't see anything. Still though, that doesn't stop the feeling of eyes being on me, watching me from somewhere I cannot see.

I cautiously begin to walk, ends of sticks and rocks cutting through the thin martial of my socks, having not had time to put shoes on before rushing out of the house. After a few steps however, I hear another set of footsteps begin to follow behind me. I speed up and hear them pick up also. And the next thing I know, I'm running. And so are they. I see something out of the corner of my eye and dart behind a tree to hide. All goes quiet again.

I'm about ready to start running again, when something grabs onto my shoulder and slams me backwards hard into the tree. I let out a quiet pained groan. I look up and see Kenny's black eyes staring back at me. He grins and I recoil, but only end up pressing harder against the tree.

"Caught you," he says.

I go to try and push him away but he shoves my shoulders and pins them in place against the tree. He looks down at the book in my arms and I put it up and under my shirt, moving it so that it rests behind my back. He looks back up at me.

"Just hand it over," he demands.

I press my back harder against the book and tree. Determined to not let him have it, for whatever reason he needed it for.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"You know who I am," he says cocking his head a bit, "I'm Kenny."

"I don't believe you," I tell him, "you can't be him you're-"

"What? Not human?" he cuts me off.

I glare at him, refusing to believe that this was the one who I had been talking to all this time.

He let's out a sigh, "Fine you want to know? Yes, I'm not exactly human, although the appearance I'm currently taking right now would say otherwise."

"What are you?" I ask.

He looks at me for a few moments, "I think you know what I am Craig, that book you're hiding should be proof enough."

I pause for a second, "...What happened to the real Kenny?"

"He's gone."

"I Don't-"

"It was me the whole time talking to you in that mirror Craig," he tells me, and for a brief moment I don't breath at those words, "Kenny was indeed used as a sacrifice for the ritual and entered the portal connecting between the human world and hell. And when I saw it open, I took my chance to escape. I turned into a soul form and took over and devoured the first human that I came in to contact with. Kenny. But as you already know, the ritual got interrupted and I got trapped. I thought I would be stuck in there forever. Until, you came along one day," he grins widely at me, "your curiosity got the better of you, and you wanted to help me instead of running away. Even after finding out it was a satanic cultist group behind it, you still wanted to help me," he moves a finger along my jaw and tilts my head up to him, "you are indeed, a very interesting human."

I shift my head to look away from him, "I still don't believe it. Stan, Kyle and Butters, they all talked to you and said you were the same as when they last saw you."

"That was all an act, I looked through Kenny's memories and just acted how he did through them all," he tells me, "I did a pretty good job at it wouldn't you say?"

I feel a sense of anger, betrayal and fear rise up in me at hearing all of this, "So it was all a lie... From the very start, it was all a lie!" I yell angrily, trying to hide the hurt I didn't want to be feeling from all this, "...Why did you help me back then?" I ask lowly, "When I was attacked- why did you help me? If you were only concerned with getting out- why even bother helping me!?"

"I needed your trust," he replies simply.

And I don't know why, but those words felt like a knife to the heart.

I let out a laugh of disbelief, "So I was being used all along? I should have figured."

"Yes."

I feel tears begin to sting at my eyes and close them trying to stop any from falling down. I feel his hand grip my jaw and force me to face him. I try to turn away but he holds my jaw tighter in place.

"I must be honest with you... I usually find humans to be quite disgusting and gross, but you, I can't lie when I say that I've taken a bit of a fondness for you," he says.

I feel something rub up against my cheek and I open my eyes. I see that it's his thumb wiping away a tear on my cheek. I try to shove him away from me but he grabs my wrists and pins them above my head. I feel the rough texture of the tree bark dig in to them because of it.

"You know, as I got to know you more, I started to wonder about you. Things like, what it would feel like to touch you? What would your flesh feel like? Was your body warm or not? What was your scent? or even..." he trails off.

And before I have time to react, I feel something wet and warm press up against my lips. When I realize what it is, I try and move my head away but he moves a hand down and holds my head in place while keeping a strong hold on my wrists with the other one. He squeezes my jaw hard forcing it to open. I feel his tongue slip into my mouth and as much as I try to move or get away from it, he holds me in place and only pushes that much harder, the more I resist. I feel his teeth run along my bottom lip and bite it hard, causing me to flinch in pain. He runs his tongue along my lip and pulls back a little from me.

"So this is what your blood taste like? How sweet," he smirks.

He moves his hand away from my jaw and down to my chest then leans forward to me again. I quickly look away, not wanting my mouth to be invaded again. He moves his mouth to my neck instead and runs his lips over it. Pushing the side of my hat out of the way as he does so.

"In a sick way, I find you extremely endearing to me," he whispers, "you know, one other reason why I saved you then, wasn't just to earn your trust Craig. I wanted you to remain untouched and pure also," I feel him press up against me a bit.

"What are you talking about?" I manage to get out.

"By that point, when it happened, I had already decided that you would be mine," he says and I feel his lips press gently against my ear, "I wanted to become one with you."

I feel his hand slink down under my shirt and move to my side. His nails digging lightly across my skin. It sends a shiver through me and I try to get away again.

He laughs a bit, "Don't worry, I don't mean becoming one with you on a psychical level, I mean more on a spiritual one."

"What the hell are you talking about?!" I shout both angry and afraid to know.

"I mean, I want our souls to become one. I want them to merge, I want to consume your soul into mine and be as one with you. I want to know what it feels like to be inside of you, really inside of you. And feel every emotion that you feel, every feeling that you touch, taste, smell or experience. I want us to become one being," he explains.

I feel his hand slowly creeping it's way around to my back.

"Aren't you already one with Kenny?" I ask trying to move so that the book stays out of his grasp.

"No, he's just sleeping for a bit while I'm taking his body out on a joy ride."

That catches my attention, "I thought you killed him? That you devoured him?"

"I did, I devoured him in to darkness and locked his soul away to sleep," he says, and reaches his hand around my back and I try everything I can to prevent him from getting the book. "Don't worry Craig, when we merge, I'll make sure to keep you intact... Mostly."

I can feel him grab onto the book and try to pull it out from behind me.

"No!" I shout.

"Just give it up already!" he hisses in my ear.

"I won't let you have it!" I tell him.

I can feel it slipping out from behind me when I hear something.

"Craig!" a voice shouts and Kenny stops moving as a bunch of footsteps are heard rushing towards us.

"Shit," Kenny mumbles.

In an unexpected move he backs away from me and let's go of the book.

"I will be back for that book," he tells me, "and you," he looks at me one more time before heading off.

The others reach me and take a look around for Kenny but find nothing.

"Are you ok?" Butters asks worried.

"...Yeah," I reply quietly.

I was anything but ok, but I didn't want them to know it. We head back to my house a short while later and I fill them in on what happened, although leaving out certain other details along the way. When we reach my room, I notice that the mirror isn't glowing anymore.

"We destroyed the blood circle," Kyle says noticing me staring at it, "that's why it's not glowing anymore. We interrupted the ritual."

I look down at the floor and see that the circle was indeed destroyed, smudge in all directions.

"We didn't want anything else to come through..." Stan adds.

I stare back at the mirror for a moment then go over to my bed and take the sheet off of it, hanging it up in front of it. The others give me a puzzling look.

"You never know who might be watching," I say.

There's a silence as they give a knowing look.

"So what should we do now?" Butters asks timidly.

"I don't know," Stan says, "I'm not even sure I know what Kenny is anymore..."

"Well judging by what Craig told us, it sounds like he may be possessed," Kyle says and looks at me, "You said his soul was asleep or something?"

I nod, "Yeah, that thing, the demon or whatever it is inside of him told me."

"But how can we know that's true?" Stan asks.

"Well I think it didn't lie to him," Butters says, "after all, it said that it wanted Craig right? So I feel like it would be pointless for it to lie about Kenny, if Craig is it's target."

"That's very possible," Kyle says, "but I still can't understand why it has such an interest in Craig, I mean aren't demons suppose to be cruel and stuff?"

I shrug a bit, "I don't know, maybe it's because I spent so much time around it?" I suggest, not wanting to go in to detail about what it really is.

"I guess..." Kyle says, not seeming to fully believe me though.

"All we know for right now is that it wants both Craig and the book," Stan says.

"But what could it want the book for?" Butters asks.

"I'm not sure," Kyle says, "but whatever it is, we can't let it have it."

"Maybe it wants to release more demons?" Butters guesses.

"You would think a book like that would have spells on how to counteract demons that are being summoned and you want to control or something," Stan scoffs.

Kyle's eyes widen, like he just remembered something, "Oh! I think there might actually be one like that!" we all look at him.

"Really?" Stan asks.

Kyle nods, "Mhmm, when I was deciphering the book, I think I came across a spell like that, but it..."

"But what?" Butters asks.

"Well from what I remembered, the spell can work one of two ways. One being where you have to draw out the demon's soul and the other being..." Kyle tails off.

"Being what?" Stan asks.

"Well in short, you would need to kill the host," he replies.

There's another short silence.

"I guess drawing it's soul out is the only way then," Stan says not even wanting to consider the other option exsisting.

"But how do we draw it out? By preforming an exorcism?" Butters asks.

"Something like that..." Kyle says and looks at me.

I arch an eyebrow slightly, "What do you mean?" I ask.

"I may have an idea for something, but let's head back to my place to talk about it. There are a few things I need to check over in my research notes of the book," Kyle tells us.

We agree to it and clean up the mess in my room a bit before heading over to Kyle's. When we get to Kyle's, he fills us in on his idea and suddenly a plan starts forming on what out next course of action should be. We all spend the night at his place, planning it out and when morning comes we decide to set our plan in motion. After everything gets set up though, we still have one last thing we need in order for the plan to work.

Kenny.


	10. Chapter 10

I walk around outside in a rainy drizzle, with the book in a bag slung over my shoulder as the bait. The two things Kenny, or the demon or whatever, said that it wanted. I try not to stray to far from the area that we set up location in. Hoping that wherever Kenny was, it was close by. The light drizzle of rain drops land on my face, cooling the surface of my skin. I shiver a bit and pull my hood's sweater over my head. I shift the small book bag on my shoulder and stop to look around, sticking my hands into my pockets to warm them. One of my hands sliding on top of a small bulky walkie-talkie that rests in my sweater's pocket. I let out a slow sigh and can faintly see my breath in the air. As I watch it dissipate, something catches my eye.

Something orange.

I go stiff for a moment then carefully turn and start to make my way to the location where everything is. As I walk to it, I can almost feel like I'm being followed, but a part of me isn't quite sure. So I take a turn around a building and glance back the way I had just come from. And I see him, walking just a short ways back from me. Watching me. I see him.

And he knows I see him.

I look forward and start to walk a bit faster. As I hear footsteps start to get louder from behind me. Louder and louder and louder until- I don't hear them anymore. I don't hear them anymore because the rain suddenly picks up and it starts to pour, drowning out all other sounds. Not being able to hear him anymore I glance back, but don't see him. I stop walking and look around. The heavy rain making it hard to see further than a certain distance. But something was telling me that, even though I couldn't see him, he could still see me. So I continue making my way back.

I hear a loud crash of some sort and tense, I quickly look in it's direction. It's a garbage can that seems like it was knocked over by something. I relax slightly and look forward again, getting ready to move. But I stop.

At the end of the road, only some meters away, I see orange. I see him. He's standing there watching me, with black lifeless eyes, unmoving. There's a long pause in what feels like forever between us, before I get the sense he's grinning widely and takes a step towards me.

That step, that one, single step, is all it takes for me to turn and run away.

I quickly try and plan out an alternate route to reach the location. I know that I'll need to go around another block or so to get back on track. I turn down another street, rain hitting my face hard and streaming down it. I keep on running until I reach an old abandoned apartment building. I glance back one last time before going in. Kenny is gone, but that doesn't stop me from going in. Because I know he's watching still.

I walk down the hall catching my breath and wiping away the rain drops on my face. Taking out the walkie-talkie as I do so and talking into it.

"I'm back," I say, "and I don't think I'm alone."

"You don't think?" I hear Stan's voice repeat back.

"Well he was following me but I lost track of him, I'm pretty sure he's still around though. So get in place just in case," I say.

"Alright we will, just make sure you bring him to the room," Kyle says.

"I will," I reply and put the walkie-talkie away.

I enter a stairway and start heading up. I get about half way up to the second floor when I hear the door I just came through slam shut. I look back down at it and see Kenny. I wonder briefly how the hell he was doing that, moving around like that so fast, and so unnoticed. He looks up at me, a smile stretched across his face. I start running up the stairs. And so does he. When I make it past the second floor, I quickly glance back to see Kenny is catching up fast to me.

As I turn at the halfway point to the third floor, I see something out of my peripheral vision go by fast from the stairway railing, and next thing I know, I'm falling. I hit my chin on the steps in front of me. I try to move but something is preventing one of my legs from doing so. When I look back, I see that Kenny is holding on to it. I try and shake my leg free.

He looks up at me, "Got you again," he says still smiling.

He slowly starts to climb up the steps and over me. I panic and try to climb up the stairs but his hand presses down on me, keeping me in place. I can feel him behind me, on my back.

"I said I would be back for you and the book didn't I?" he says, and pulls my hood down touching my neck, "Oh you poor thing, you're all wet. You must be cold," an almost teasing manner taking over his tone as he traces a finger down the middle of my neck. "Maybe I should warm you up."

I feel something warm press on my neck and move up it. My breath catches for a moment before I try to get away again. Then I feel something sharp on my neck, his teeth, biting down hard. I stop my movements and his bite lightens as I feel a hand slide under my shirt and move across my back.

"Human flesh is strange don't you think?" he says quietly, "If it's cold out, the flesh mimics that and becomes cold too. And if it's hot or warm out..." he trails off and I can feel his breathing on the back of my neck. It makes the hairs on my skin stand on end. His hand moves up and down my spin lightly, but with growing pressure from each movement against it, "I wonder.. if these goosebumps on your skin are because of the cold, or are because of me?"

I need to get to the room, I need to get to the room, I think over and over in my head on repeat, not allowing myself to think of anything else, not wanting to think of anything else. But I know it's too late, the flood gates have already opened and the thoughts come pouring in one after another.

Like how my breathing is so shallow. Or how come I'm not finding that being touched right now, this way by him, isn't repulsive like it was when Jason did it. Or how I'm not yelling, screaming, at him to get off of me. After all that has happened. I don't understand myself. I don't understand what's going on through my mind or body fully. Maybe I'm not doing what most would do in this situation because I knew him before. But that was a lie. I never knew him. It was all an act, this isn't the real Kenny. I never knew who the real one was, I only ever knew the thing that took him over and pretended to be him. And used me for it's own gain, used and manipulated me.

It's all a lie.

Which meant that whatever feeling and emotion I had felt up till then was a lie too. I hated myself for falling for his act and I hated myself even more for having these painful feelings form because of it. It was all a lie, fabricated by a demon in human skin. His nails dig into my skin as he moves his hand down my back. I let out a pained groan.

"I want us to become one so badly Craig," he almost pants out, "I can't stop thinking about it, I want to be inside of your body so much," he presses down onto me, "thinking of our souls merging into one is making me so excited," he breaths out heavily. I can feel something hard pressing against my back and I try not to think about what it is. "I Can't take it anymore- I need to be inside of you right now."

And suddenly I'm on my back and looking up at black eyes. There's a small smile with an almost heated look on his face. And I take the chance while he's distracted with feeling, whatever it is that he's feeling in the moment, to swing the small book bag as hard as I can across his face. It seems to catch him off guard as it knocks him off of me and down the stairs. I quickly get up and run as fast as I can up the stairs.

I hear a loud hiss as I round past the third floor, "You shouldn't have done that Craig!" he shouts and it echos throughout the staircase.

As I reach the fourth floor I can hear his heavy footsteps gaining on me again. I exit through the fourth's floor door, slamming it behind me. I look to the end of the hall that the room's at and head for it.

I take out the walkie-talkie,"We're about to enter the room right now, get ready!" I shout into it.

A few seconds later the staircase door behind me slams open. I shove the device back into my pocket. When I reach the apartment door, I open it fast and slam it shut behind me locking it. I go down a short hall entering into a living room as I hear a loud thud against the door. I take off the book bag and take the red leather book out of it setting it down onto a small, old worn out table by a door. I then walk over to a big carpet in the center of the room and wait. A couple of loud thuds later, I hear the door break open and footsteps make their way down the hall. Soon enough I see Kenny come around the corner. He stops and looks at me.

He smiles a bit, "You're not even going to hide?"

"Didn't have time too," I reply.

He tilts his head a bit, "Even though you locked the door, you didn't have time to?"

I tense a bit, not liking where this may be headed and praying that he doesn't catch on. He spots the empty book bag on the floor.

"Where's the book?" he asks, looking around.

I glance over at the small table and notice the book is now gone. Then glance back at Kenny.

"I hid it," I say, "that's why I didn't have time to hide, because I didn't want you to get it."

"Where did you hide it?" he growls.

"Who knows, could be anywhere," I smile slightly, "Guess taking my memories is the only way to find out. Because I'm telling you."

He looks at me for a few seconds, then smiles widely walking towards me.

"I guess so," he stops in front of me and grabs the front of my sweater. "Although I wish you wouldn't have hit me earlier," he tells me before punching me in the stomach. And I hunch over in pain. "It really fucking hurt," and he knocks me down onto the ground. He kicks my stomach and I let out a pained cough, then straddles himself on top of me, grabbing my wrists and pinning them at either side of my head. "I was hoping that we could've had a bit more fun first, but, oh well," he leans down over me. I see what he's trying to do and turn my head to the side. He let's out a sigh against my skin and pulls back. "Don't be like that," he places a hand to my jaw, forcing me to look at him, "open your mouth," he orders and squeezes the sides of my jaw hard. I feel his nail dig into my cheeks, the pain of it causing my my jaw to unhinge a bit. "That's better," he grins, "now stay just like that."

He opens his own mouth and I see something form in it. A black cloud like mist. It slowly starts to seep out of his mouth. He leans back over me and the black stuff starts to spill onto my lips. I struggle to get him off of me, grabbing at his hand on my jaw with my free hand.

We're going to become one.

A voice inside of my head says. And I begin to panic at it, digging my nails as hard as I can into his wrist trying to get him off. I can faintly feel the black stuff make it's way past my lips and into my mouth. Touching my tongue.

"Now!" a voice shouts.

And the doors surrounding the living room quickly open. Stan rushes over to Kenny and pulls him off of me. While Butters grabs onto me and drags me back some feet. The remainder of the black cloudy mist leaves Kenny's body and tries to finish making it's way into me. But it comes to a stop as Butters pulls me across an invisible barrier. Any mist that was in my mouth being pulled out as we cross the barrier. I see the mist whirl around in circles a few times, trying to get to me. Then I see it turn and try to head back for Kenny's body, but is stopped again be an invisible force. I sit up and cough a few times as Kyle steps out now holding the book. The mist goes sporadic in it's movements all of a sudden.

"I caught you," I pant out smirking at it.

The mist stops, and if it had eyes right now, I know it would be looking at me, glaring at me.

I look at Kyle, "Do it," I tell him.

He nods and begins reading the spell. As soon as the first few words leave Kyle's mouth, the mist begins to go crazy. Trying to escape it's invisible prison. Hitting the ground, and ceiling and walls of it's cell. Butters and Stan take out a broken half of a cross each and place them on the ground in front of them. The broken pieces begin to glow brightly and the mist begins to pull and stretch in all directions. The light from the two halves of the cross directs it's self into a beam aiming at the center of the room where the mist is. Kyle continues reading, each word making the light glow stronger and stronger. Slowly causing the black mist to disintegrate in to nothingness. If I could hear it's voice right now, I know I'd hear it screaming and cursing at us. As Kyle finishes reading the last of the spell, the last remaining bit of the black mist completely disappears in to nothing. And the two broken cross halves start to dim down until they stop glowing altogether. I stare a the spot the mist was in for a while as silence falls on us.

"...Is it over?" Butters asks, finally breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I think so," Kyle says quietly.

"I can't believe it worked," Stan says.

Kyle leans down to the floor lifting up a side of the big old dusty carpet, "I wonder if we should clean this up?" he asks pulling the carpet towards himself and revealing a big painted red circle with symbols underneath it.

"Nah, I don't think so, this place is set to be demolished next month, so no point to," Stan says and picks up the half cross he had placed at the side of the circle, "but maybe we should burn these things, just in case." Butters picks up the other half and heads over to Stan with it.

Kyle nods in agreement, "Good idea, maybe we should also burn this thing too?" he suggests holding up the book.

"Yeah," Stan says taking the other half of the cross from Butters.

"Are you ok?" Butters asks looking at me.

I nod a bit.

"Are you sure dude? That black stuff got right in to your mouth," Stan says.

"I'm fine," I say, "I'm just glad that everything's over with now."

"Same," Kyle agrees.

I look at Kenny and am about to ask how he's doing, when he makes a sound and moves his head a bit.

"I think he's waking up!" Butters exclaims.

And we all rush over to him.

"Kenny?" Kyle asks.

His eyes open slightly.

"Kenny, hey! Kenny can you hear us?" Stan asks.

Kenny blinks slowly a couple of times and looks around, "...Guys?" he says in a quiet voice.

His own voice.

Stan laughs a bit in relief, "Hey man, how are you feeling?"

Kenny looks around, his eyes falling onto each of his friends faces, "I'm fine... I think," he says not sounding quite sure, "Where are we?"

Kyle smiles a bit,"We'll tell you all about it later Kenny."

"Yeah," Butters nods.

"For now we should get out of here," Stan says and helps Kenny sit up a bit.

When Kenny sits up, his eyes land on me, now noticing my presence in the room. My breathing stops as we look at one another, a deafening silence setting in. There's a long pause in what feels like an eternity as he stares at me.

"Who's... who's that?" he asks.

Something inside of me drops.

"It's Craig," Butters says sounding concerned.

"Craig?" Kenny repeats back sounding confused.

It's as if my name is completely foreign to him, like it's the first time he's ever heard or spoken it. Suddenly, I find it hard to breath. I knew it was the demon the whole time I had talked to. But for some reason, hearing those words be said, and come from his mouth still hurt, a lot. Not being able to think of anything to say in response, I just smile a bit. But I'm sure the smile comes off as being one of hurt because the others all look at one another.

"Uhhh, like Kyle said Kenny, 'we'll tell you all about it later'," Stan says in an attempt to break the now forming awkward air around us.

Then they try and help Kenny to his feet. The first few attempts, Kenny has a bit of trouble standing, saying that his back and head hurt for some reason. Eventually they are able to help him leave the room. We all head out of the building and notice it's stopped raining. The others agree to head back to Kyle's house with Kenny, to explain things, but I decide to tell them I'm heading back home, to rest and stuff.

They don't press me on the matter and only offer a sympathetic look as response. My eyes fall on Kenny one more time before I leave. He looks back at me and I offer another pitiful smile to him before I turn and head home.


	11. Chapter 11

A couple of weeks pass by and things at the school got a bit crazy. Mostly because of Kenny's mysterious return to school and the town. I keep a distance from him though. Just watching from a far. And from what I can see, he seemed pretty popular with a lot of people at school. A lot of them seemed happy to see him again. Of course the most common thing he was asked, was where he was all that time. The others and him just told everyone else that he moved away to live with his grandparents for a bit but ended up deciding to come back home. Although Butters told me he had to tell his siblings and parents that he ran away.

As the days continued to pass by, things gradually grew calm again at school. Kyle, Stan, Butters and Kenny hung around one another a lot at school, along with Cartman too sometimes, who didn't seem to buy the whole Kenny just moving away thing and kept on asking them about it. They would sometimes come up to me and ask me to join them or hangout, but I would decline, saying I was busy. But mainly because I wasn't sure how to act around Kenny, he would often just watch me or look at me when they did that. Then there was also Jason's very shocked and somewhat even afraid reaction to seeing Kenny, but he didn't say anything to him, just kept his distance. Luckily he hasn't bothered me either and I hope it stays that way.

And so, today after school, as the sun is beginning to set. I find myself at my locker, opening it and putting some of my books and things away, getting ready to leave. After having spent a couple of hours in the library studying and doing some work on an upcoming project.

"Um, hello," a voice greets. A very familiar voice at that.

I freeze and hesitantly glance around my locker door and see Kenny standing there. The setting sun's light shinning in brightly from the windows at the end of the hall behind him, causing a glowing effect to form around him.

"...Hello," I reply slowly.

"Sorry if this seems a bit strange, but the others, Stan, Kyle and Butters have been filling me in on what happened after I woke up that day, in that abandon apartment building," he tells me, "to be honest, I was very confused at first, but I did remember being taken away by a group and a ritual and stuff too. However, my memories stop there, the moment I entered that portal, I don't remember anything else. Everything's a blank until I had come to in that room..." he trails off, his gaze drifting away as he does so.

I look back into my locker, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because..." he starts, "the others had told me that you were mainly the one who had saved me, and that you were my friend."

"I was friends with a demon pretending to be you," I correct.

"I know, but even still..." I glance back at him and see that he's looking at me again, "thank you."

"For what?" I ask.

"For saving me," he laughs softly and I go quiet, "look, I know you probably are avoiding me because of what happened to you. Heck, if the same had happened to me, I would probably do the same thing as you," his gaze drops again, "even looking at me, I probably remind you of painful things now, so I don't blame you if you turn this down but... I want to know you."

My eyes widen, "...What?"

He looks back up at me, "I just- after hearing about you from the others, about how well you all got along and how you saved me and stuff. My curiosity grew about you more and more and I wanted to know more about you. I wanted to know you, and remember you. And I wanted you to know the real me, not whatever was pretending to be me."

"I..." I fall silent.

I had told myself over and over, so many times that it was the demon and not him, but it still hurt for some reason. But I also couldn't blame Kenny for what had happened to him, it wasn't his fault. He was a victim in all of this after all. His actions were not his own, as they were being controlled by another as his soul lied dormant for all that time.

"It's okay if you don't want to though," he speaks up noticing my silence, "I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, it's just a thought is all."

I look back in my locker, examining everything that's in it as my thoughts wonder. I can't lie to myself and not say that some part of me also thought the same as him. Wanting to know how the real Kenny was like, and not the thing that was pretending to be him. I continue to look in to my locker for what I'm pretty sure are a good some seconds before I take my bag out, close my locker then look at him.

"It's okay," I say after coming to a decision, "I would like that."

He smiles and although I thought seeing it again would remind me of before, this one seems to have something in it, something more.

Life.

"Awesome!" he says enthusiastically, "Do you- wanna come and hangout with me and the others today then?"

I smile back a bit, "Sure."

And we start walking down the hall.

"Oh yeah... this is another thing that may sound a bit strange to say but, I had a dream with you in it recently," he tells me.

"A dream?" I repeat back.

"Yeah," he laughs, "I'm thinking it's from all the stories I've been told about you recently."

"What was it about?" I ask a bit curious by it.

He stops and thinks of it for a moment then looks away, "Um, you know what- never mind forget I brought it up," he says quickly and starts walking again.

"You already brought it up though," I point out, "so just say it. It's just a dream right?"

"I just don't... want to make things awkward between us, after you said you were okay with me getting to know you," he says quietly.

"You already brought it up, so just tell me it," I say.

He turns to look at me, a sheepish expression on his face, "In the dream, you were leaning your forehead against mine and said that you 'wished I were here with you'," he tells me and a long silence falls, my eyes widening at his words. He shakes his head, "Great, I've made things awkward haven't I?" he let's out a sigh, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have even brought up that dream I had."

"It wasn't a dream..." I murmur quietly.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

When I realize I had said that out loud, my face burns and I quickly turn away and continue walking down the hall.

"Hey- wait! What did you mean!?" Kenny asks shouting after me.

"It's nothing," I say, "let's just go and find the others."

As I reach the doors he stops me, grabbing a hold of my wrist, "Look, I'm sorry I brought up that dumb dream, just- please don't be mad at me," he pleads.

"I'm not mad," I tell him and look up at him.

Now his are the one's whose eyes widen.

"Whoa- hey- are you cr-crying?!" he let's go of my wrist, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean- don't cry, please!" he says worriedly, I laugh and wipe the tears from my face. He stops and looks at me concerned, "Are you okay?"

I sniffle a bit then smile at him, "Yeah, I think that I am now."

He gives me a puzzled look but doesn't say any more, instead places a hand on the other door, and slowly we both push open the heavy school doors. The setting sun's light filling up the halls dark shadows behind us.

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, that's the end of 'The Boy In The Mirror'. I want to thank those that have stuck with this story from start to finish, and those that commented and left such nice messages, thank you so much. I hope that you enjoyed reading this story, I had a lot of fun writing it!
> 
> I made a playlist for this story as well if you want to take a listen to it. 
> 
> [Link to playlist](https://8tracks.com/omission-tunes/i-ll-be-right-here)
> 
> Thank you and until next time, take care!


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